Vampire Bride
by solitaryloner
Summary: Miku Hatsune was once a hunter who protected humans from the predators of the night. And now, she's slowly changing into one of those predators herself, simply because a certain boy from her past wants her to be his bride. The problem with that is that Len Kagamine is vampire royalty, and if the change itself wasn't bad enough, she now had vampire politics to deal with too. LenKu.
1. Chapter 1

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

She had never heard a more annoying sound. She hated the rain. Oh, don't get her wrong – she adored downpours, the savageness of the storm as it released all its fury. What she hated were drizzles and how…indecisive they were. Was that the right word to use?

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

She stuck her hands in her pockets, her sharp eyes looking left and right, waiting for the right time to make her appearance. Anyone would have missed the shadowy figure hiding in the alley, with her fierce emerald eyes and mouth set in a grim line. She was like stone, chest barely rising and falling – all she did was to wait for _them _to appear.

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

The rain was getting on her nerves. She could hear the individual drops as they fell into the puddle of water next to her. She was tempted to move from her spot just to get away from the noise but then that would mean giving up her strategic hiding spot. Whatever discomfort she was suffering now was worth finishing her job and tonight's mission.

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

"Well, well. Look like they sent a little mouse for tonight's snack, didn't they?" she whipped around, already having half-expected them to sneak up on her like the sneaky little bastards they were. It didn't surprise her that they came up from behind her – what surprised her was that there were a hell lot more than just _two _like she was warned. This wasn't two at all, if the other three shadows she saw slinking through the alley, cutting through dim swathes of moonlight, were any indication of their numbers.

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

"We'll see who ends up a snack tonight," she spat, backing up against the wall, away from them and their gleaming eyes, salivating in the moonlight. Her hands found the sharp silver daggers hidden in her coat pockets. One, she could kill without a problem. Two was a breeze. Three could be done with dangerous exertion, four if she had quite a bit of luck on her side that night. Four was the most she had ever done at a time.

Five…it would seem that tonight, the odds were not in her favour. They surrounded her, laughing at her bravery – or was it folly? – and preparing, just gearing up to attack her. She brandished her daggers, and they backed away just slightly at the sight of the metal that could burn into their skin like acid – but what could two daggers do to five of them? And they came to that realisation, that brief instance of space quickly disappearing.

_Drip. Drip._

The rain hadn't died out, and she wouldn't just let herself die tonight either. She was sent to complete a job and, even if it seemed impossible, she would do it. Failure was not a word she permitted in her dictionary. They all came at her, five snarling beasts all salivating for her blood, and she let herself go, let her body follow a natural rhythm.

It seemed that for a while, she might actually come out relatively unharmed, as her daggers swiped through the air and connected with skin and muscle and bone – but the turning point came when she threw one dagger through one of their hearts, the creature instantly dissolving into dust. And that seemed to trigger some kind of frenzy in the other four, because they came to her with a renewed bloodlust and she realised she now was only armed with one dagger – and that wasn't even nearly enough.

_Drip. Drip._

It hurt, it hurt so bad. She wanted to cry for her mother but she wouldn't allow these foul creatures to see her cry. It made her proud that she managed to bring down another two of them before they got to her – at least she killed more than half of their group. Another could finish what her broken body had failed to do, she assured herself. She knew she was going to die, as those monsters tore into her and took what they wanted from her body – she hoped that she gave them food poisoning.

She never knew it would hurt so bad. She had never been bitten before. Her fingers twitched, struggling to put up some last remnant of resistance, but they held her arms down while they latched on to her skin, taking greedily the very substance that kept her alive. It burnt like fire, like acid, like poison through her veins. She prayed to God and hoped her family would continue her mission. She hoped her parents would not miss her. She didn't want to be missed, because that would hurt more than physical pain.

_Drip. Drip._

She couldn't be sure but it suddenly seemed like the weight was gone. Her eyes were half-closed. Was she dying? It seemed so…peaceful, suddenly there were no more creatures mauling her. There was another shadowy figure, illuminated against the moon, and whoever it was seemed angry, gesturing away into the darkness. She couldn't be sure – oh, how badly she wanted to close her eyes – but the other two seemed to cower back in fear and fled away from the angry one, whoever he was. Was he an angel, sent down to escort her away from the mortal plane? He came towards her, saying something to her, but she didn't understand – her brain wasn't functioning properly.

He seemed to sigh, or so she thought. He leant down towards her – she could sort of make him out now, her vision was so hazy, but he looked…he looked familiar, and he looked beautiful, like someone she knew, this angel. She couldn't give him a name at this moment, but when she looked at him there was this faintest sense of longing and regret, and pain…no, not the pain she was experiencing now, but an emotional pain, and she hissed weakly, not wanting to experience any more hurt than she already did. He pressed something warm to her lips, and some sort of liquid trickled in – it tasted salty, faintly metallic, and she instantly retched, not wanting to drink anymore of it.

He pressed whatever it was harshly against her mouth and held her head up, forcing her to swallow, so she did, and she found tears leaking out from the corners of her eyes as she squeezed her eyes shut. He murmured something, she couldn't make out what he said – the more she swallowed the less woozy she felt and the more she could feel the sharpness of the pain that shot through her body. She didn't want to drink anymore, didn't want to feel the sharp intense _ache _that was overtaking her, but he forced her to continue and she didn't have the strength to pull away, nor would he let her.

_Drip. Drip._

It was still raining. Her vision was somewhat cleared now, and she could see him clearly – could make out those handsome features, the cold blue gaze that looked midnight in the darkness, and the bright blond hair that gleamed silver in the moon – she wanted to push him away or run a dagger through him right there and then as she recognised him and finally put a name to his face, but she was still weak and she couldn't move. She swallowed another mouthful, and with abrupt horror realised what she was drinking…

"My sweet Miku," he whispered, tilting his head, finally removing his wrist from her mouth. She wanted to cry now, wanted to retch and throw up everything she just ingested, but she couldn't – was so utterly horrified that all she could do was stare up at him. "I thought you were going to die, and I couldn't let that happen now, could I?" he asked, more to himself than to her. "Even if you might hate me for it…" he added.

"Let…go…" she managed to move her lips, wanting to scream, wanting to sob, wanting to die. Weakly, she tried to reach up to shove him away, but her hand couldn't move that far up – she ended up reaching up to wipe her mouth, feeling liquid trickling down her chin. Her hand trembled as she brought it back down, white skin stained with some dark liquid in the night – she knew what it was, knew what he fed her. She hated him for it because this changed things, it changed everything. She wished she was dead.

_Drip. Drip._

"I'll bring you to my home to recuperate. You can rail at me afterwards, as I'm sure you're longing to do," she hated how easily he carried her up into his arms, as though she was weak and pathetic and not the hunter she actually was. But could she still be considered a hunter when she had been defeated and overwhelmed this way? "I wanted to continue staying away," he murmured, again to himself rather than her. "You make things so difficult for me…" she didn't miss the way his gaze strayed to her neck, and she flinched. There was no way she could protect herself now, weapon-less and weak.

"I hate you, Len Kagamine," she whispered, her fingers clenching. She didn't have the strength to reach up and hit him, her effort having been expended on wiping her mouth earlier. A corner of his lips curved up and he shook his head, not bothering to respond. Her eyes closed and she couldn't seem to open them, no matter how hard she tried, and she wondered if this meant she would really find the death she sought. But she knew now, now that _he _had interfered, she wouldn't be able to find any sort of death or release. He would always be there. He would never allow her to die, and that scared her.

_Drip. Drip._

"I love you too, Miku," he said, his voice seeming to echo from somewhere far away.

…_drip._

She thought no more.

* * *

><p>"Shh, shh. Come now, shouting at me won't change anything," he had her wrists held together in his tight grip, and she was flailing as hard as she could in her weakened state, not wanting to be <em>anywhere <em>near this boy who had ruined her life.

"Filthy…parasite!" she hissed, jerking her arms helplessly. His eyes narrowed at her, and his free hand reached up to grab her face, tilting her chin up so she had to look up at him. Her chest heaved as she struggled to catch her breath, utterly furious yet completely broken and defeated. There were white bandages wrapped around her arms and her torso, and when she moved, it hurt. She hadn't recovered enough to undergo such exertion, but she couldn't help it – seeing him made her feel murderous.

"_This _parasite kept you alive," he said sharply, icy gaze boring into her. She wanted to shiver as she was forced to stare into those eyes – it wasn't just the glacial shade of blue that reminded her of cold, perfect crystals and the Arctic ice, it was also the sheer intensity of that gaze and how it seemed to pierce through her like the icy North wind. She forced that moment of helplessness away and scowled, replacing the shock with more familiar anger. In situations of uncertainty, she felt that rage helped her best.

"I'd rather die than be saved by you," she hissed, putting every single ounce of venom she could muster into her voice, and she was somewhat rewarded when her blond haired saviour flinched. "What did you turn me into? A mutation! Something unwanted by either side! How do you think the others would react to me now – I'm neither here nor there, not me nor you, I'm a hybrid and our societies detest hybrids," her voice was choking up, eyes welling up with tears. She didn't want to cry in front of him.

"Then turn into one of us," he said, so matter-of-factly that all she could do was gape at him in response. It was a laughable idea, and she didn't know how to react to it – all she could do was throw back her head and laugh, a miserable, hopeless laugh that rang with nothing but despair. Something flitted through his expression, some kind of emotion that she couldn't identify because all she could do was focus on her own helplessness – but then he reached out, his fingertips brushing lightly against her cheek.

She didn't flinch away like she normally would. For once, his skin wasn't noticeably cooler than hers, and she wondered if that was a clear indication that she was already changing. She wanted to stab herself, but then he wouldn't let her die… "There's nothing wrong with becoming like us," he said softly. "Lots of us survive without ever feeding on someone else. There are plenty of substitutes. It's not as bleak as you think it is, Miku."

She looked at him, her gaze dead. "It's not a matter of feeding or not. I know about the substitutes, the blood banks and pills – but my family?" she laughed again, this time bitterly. "I was born and raised to hunt your kind, to ensure that we're safe from you. If I turn into one of you, then what of _my _kind…do I just abandon them? My friends, my society, my mother and father – I had to personally kill my elder brother when he was converted and till this day the memory makes me sick. A converted human goes mad, that's what we all know – I'll have to die sooner or later anyway," she shook her head, dislodging his hand from her chin. Her rescue was an illusion – she would die soon.

She was going to die the moment they overwhelmed her and all he did was draw out the dying process, making it all that more painful for her. She wondered if he hated her for hating him – why else would he do this to her, why wouldn't he just let her go? He sighed, running his fingers through her hair – she shook him away, not wanting to be anywhere near the one who had ruined her life completely. "Miku, look – _look here and listen to me_," his voice changed, becoming lower and smoother, almost compelling. Against her will she looked up and looked at him – _did he…did he just mesmerise me? _"You are _not _going to die, you understand me? Because you are not changing – at least, not in the way you think you are," he said, his voice returning to normal.

He had a pleasant voice, charming and even, but she wanted none of that when she knew what he was and _why _his voice was so lyrical, so soothing to listen to. "Are you lying to me just to make me feel better about drawing out the death sentence laid on me?" her voice was brittle. "Save your effort, Kagamine. Nothing you say now can make me turn to one of your kind," she whispered savagely. "I will fight every single second of the change even if it drives me apart within, and when they come to kill me I won't fight against it either. At least, I'll try not to…" her words faded away into a whisper.

He looked like he was struggling not to reach out and shake sense into her. "Listen to me," his voice lowered again, but there was no persuasive undertone this time – his words were almost snarled out, and she stilled, never having seen him in this mood before though she knew that he could be violent if he wanted to be. "You will _not _change and that is final. Your lot doesn't have as comprehensive a knowledge of the change as we do; a converted human, a fresh initiate only goes on a rampage when they're bitten by a _common _leech, one of the other filth that you all love to destroy. It's an endless cycle – they're bitten and slowly they change, the newfound lust for blood driving them mad in the process. They go around and bite others and anyone who survives their attack changes as well, so on and so forth. Occasionally some of them get out of the insanity phase before you can get to them and those are the ones you really have to look out for – like the ones who attacked you tonight, they were almost out of it. But I guess seeing you kill their companion drove them back into frenzy. They weren't going to kill you at first, they just wanted to convert you and use you as leverage with your council," he laughed. It was a sharp, bitter, almost mocking sound, and she flinched.

"Well, that certainly wouldn't have worked," she muttered. "The council would have ordered my execution anyway, even if I used to be one of their own. I could be the President of the Council and they would still order me dead," she laughed too, though hers was more desperate than bitter. "The Council makes no negotiations with foul creatures such as them…as you," she added as an aside, and his eyes narrowed at her tone. She knew she struck a nerve with what she said but she didn't care – she was so upset at what he had done that she just recklessly wanted to anger him as much as she could, let him feel the same rage and helplessness that she did. _It just isn't fair._

He chose to ignore her barb, letting her angry words slide over him. "I know they bit you and drew your blood," he said evenly, catching her attention and forcing her to focus on his words again. "And by right you should have changed due to their infection. But the thing is there is another way to be turned other than what your Council knows. And that is to be bitten by a royal…one of the pureblooded ones. And when someone is bitten by a royal," a strange look entered his eyes, "they don't enter the insanity phase…it's a lot worse though," his gaze slanted to meet hers. "Because any human that is converted by a royal is bound to them for life – to be their mate or slave, or whatever the royal wills. When he says come, the convert comes. There is absolutely no struggling involved."

She was starting to have a bad feeling about this. "Not like I was bitten by a royal, was I?" she retorted in a bid to cover up her discomfort. He nodded, agreeing with her, but his icy gaze shifted away from her face, as though he didn't want to share something with her. Her suspicions grew, and she reached out, placing her hand on his shoulder – she was taking advantage of his feelings for her now, that she knew, but she wasn't above doing that to get the knowledge she wanted. "What are you hiding from me?" she asked him, her voice low. He glanced at her hand on his shoulder, and then looked away, worrying his lip. She saw a tiny hint of curved canine, sharp and white, saw his eyes flick towards her neck and look away again, obviously avoiding her and her questions.

She narrowed her eyes. She could be difficult as well, especially since he was hiding things that appeared to be vital for her future and well-being. "Len," she started, her voice catching – she didn't know what else to say, but she knew she had to come up with something. The boy looked up at her at the sound of his name, blue eyes darting back and forth. His bright blond hair was tied up in a low ponytail at the nape of his neck, and his hand reached up to tug on it, a distinct sign of his discomfort. She edged a little closer to him and she felt him tense underneath her hand, wary of whatever she was doing. "You fed me your blood," she said bluntly. "You force fed me something that you _know _I would never have touched, not of my own free will. Even if that saved my life, _your _blood is probably accelerating my descent into insanity right now. You owe me an explanation at least," she gritted her teeth. His gaze travelled up her arm and rested briefly on the white bandages that were wrapped around her skin. He sighed.

"I fear that what I tell you will make you hate me more than you already do," his gaze flicked up to meet hers. She frowned, glancing at her bandage-wrapped arm, then looked back up at him again – the message was clear. _If you don't tell me what I need to know, I will hate you more than you ever thought I could. _He sighed again, a sound filled with obvious reluctance, and she sat back, waiting for the answer to her questions to slide past his lips. He laced his fingers together, forming a steeple. Minutes ticked by, minutes filled with tense silence as he seemed to gather his thoughts, before finally he opened his mouth and turned to face her, determination set out on his face.

"You know that feeding a human our blood speeds up the conversion. However, if royal blood is fed to someone bitten by a convert, the royal's blood suppresses the convert's venom, allowing whoever it is to remain in their human state. But that is only so long as the royal blood does not overwhelm the human, and any day the change might begin – the trigger could be anything and everything. Stress, blood loss, being fed more of that royal's blood...after all, one must keep in mind that the conversion happens when there is more of _our _blood or venom than _your_ human blood in your veins. And since a royal's blood is stronger than a human's, the change is really quite unpredictable. There's no telling when you will change," he let out a deep sigh, closing his eyes. She frowned, a little confused – why was he telling her all this about royal blood when she didn't…

Her eyes widened. _No, that's not possible – wasn't he converted? _"Miku," he started, the same time she started edging back from him, "I know this might come as a shock to you. But I'm not a convert," his voice was low. "I'm the royal amongst royals – my name is Len Kagamine of the first House of _nosferatu_, I'm the Crown Prince of the undead and when I reach my twenty-first birthday, I take the throne. And you…" his blue eyes rested coolly on her, "if you ever convert to be one of my kind, I'll take you to be my bride."

That was the very last thing she remembered hearing, that and his fingers upon her cheek, before everything around her seemed to spin and fade away into nothingness.

* * *

><p>Her name was Miku Hatsune, and she was eighteen. She had a pretty normal life – a close group of friends, decent grades, a warm, loving family (save for the sad, empty chair that reminded them of a lost presence at the dinner table) though she admitted that her love life was rather lacking. Overall, she was pretty satisfied with herself.<p>

But what people didn't know was that she belonged to the _chasseur_, the Hunters, the people who secretly protected the rest of society from the true fiends. Human nature could never match up to the undead, and that was what they protected people from – the real extent of evil that others could be capable of. People like Len Kagamine who fed on people to survive, who revelled in bloodshed and got drunk on lifeblood – the undead _nosferatu_, the vampires. They had a treaty, the Hunters and the vampires – as long as the undead obtained their blood through legal means like blood banks or relied on synthetic blood (blood pills sometimes, which were some form of apparently tasteless alternative the vampires themselves developed) they would be left alone, much to the distaste of most hunters. But there were some that ignored the rules and preyed indiscriminately on humans, and those were the ones the hunters exterminated.

The Hunters didn't know much about the vampires and how they lived. They only knew how to kill them – vampires were vulnerable to silver unless they were royal and otherwise could be killed in pretty much the same way as any other human if they took away the inhuman speed and strength and unnaturally fast healing. Decapitation was the best way since even staking their hearts might not work – vampires could heal fast, and generally once they removed the object from their chests it took less than a minute for them to recover from the blow. But they couldn't regrow a head, so that was the only way to ensure they would die. Once they died, they exploded into dust, leaving behind no trace – she liked that, it made the cleaning up afterwards less of a hassle.

Miku was trained since young to kill them but had never relished the job – not till her brother was bitten in the line of work and turned into one of them. She had to personally destroy her flesh and blood brother – the sibling who grew up with her and taught her everything she knew – she had to look into those familiar green eyes and watch the uncharacteristic leer on his face as he beckoned for her to come, sharp fangs glinting in the moonlight. She could see the tinge of red underneath that mossy green, but could almost convince herself that he wasn't undead, that he wasn't one of them –

But then she saw him pick up a homeless tramp from the streets and drain his body dry, tossing the corpse into a nearby Dumpster like it was nothing but trash, and that was when she knew that the man she loved so dearly was no longer there. And she had to kill him – she had to look into those familiar green eyes which, for the split second before she drove her dagger down, had seemed to well with love and warmth – she had to look into them and force herself to stab down and cut his head off. But right after that, right before he exploded into dust…she never saw such a look of peace on someone's face – never saw such bliss before, not in her life, and she knew then that her brother would have wanted that. He would never have wanted to be a murderer, a _leech._

She resolved that from then on, she would hunt down as many bloodsuckers as she could and help release them from their chains. She felt like she was helping, in her job – she helped these trapped souls find their salvation, their final moments of peace. She didn't regard what she did as murder, and revelled in her job no matter how dangerous it was, even when her mother asked her to reconsider after she came home one day totally bruised and battered – she never wanted to let go of the feeling of peace and bliss that came with seeing someone being freed from the chains of vampirism.

She was a Hunter and she was one of the best at her job. But now she was one of them, one of those foul creatures she wished to rid the world of so desperately – she was going to, might change into one of them at any day now, and when she did she would be bound to Len Kagamine, the vampire she hated the _most _and with good reason. She sat on the bed, rocking back and forth, twisting the sheets between her fingers – she was gripping them so tightly that her already pale knuckles had turned white. She didn't know whether to be thankful to him for saving her life and preventing her descent into insanity, or to hate him – because he helped her bypass the insanity by binding her to him and making her his slave. And ultimately, she would still become a leech anyway.

"Miku, can I come in?" there was a knock on the door and then his soft voice drifted to her through the wooden door. She chose not to answer, instead rocking faster and faster on the bed. There was a moment of silence and then the doorknob turned, and he came in, the boy who had ruined her life – the boy who was now staring at her with sad blue eyes that looked like frozen crystal. He came to her, sat next to her on the bed and did nothing but watch her. She tried to pretend that he wasn't there, didn't want to acknowledge him or show any awareness whatsoever of his presence.

She flinched though, when his hand came near her. He noticed that and he bit his lip – this time there was no hint of canine, but the very sight of his white teeth made her tense. His hand smoothed her hair, gliding through the teal strands. "I know you must hate me entirely now for doing this to you," he said in a low voice. "But I couldn't just stand by and watch them kill you. What do you expect me to do?"

"You should have let me die," she finally deigned to reply, her voice brittle. "You knew I wouldn't be thankful to you for saving me, or so you say – how could it be a rescue when you're throwing me into an existence that's worse than death itself? To be unwanted by both the Hunters and the vampires for being a mix, not knowing when I will change, not knowing if my parents will want me anymore since I'm what they now hate – you really rescued me, didn't you?" the sarcasm dripped from every word. He looked hurt, but she didn't care about that or about him – she was just reeling from her own injustice.

"Look, nothing is going to change, _nothing. _You will still go to school, and so will I. If you don't tell the Council or anyone they won't know! You're a strong girl, Miku," he grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to still and look at him. "You're a strong girl," he repeated, "and only the gods know how strong you can be. Maybe you can suppress my blood, maybe you won't even change. Maybe the human blood and the royal blood can coexist within you because, gods, you're the strongest girl I know and if anyone has a chance to make this work it'll be you. You understand me?" he said this so intensely that all she could do was nod, transfixed by the overwhelming determination in his eyes.

"Why, though?" she asked, forcing her lips to move. His eyes widened in surprise. "Why are you still…still so nice? Why are you so supportive? Don't you want me to change to become your bride?" she didn't understand, because if she didn't change then he wouldn't get what he wanted. And the Len Kagamine she knew was far from selfless.

He hesitated. When he next spoke, his voice was low. "Yes, I know I'm selfish and I fed you my blood in part because I wanted you to be mine, but at the same time…" his fingers tightened around her shoulders, "at the same time you _know _I love you, you know I loved you since I was eight and that hasn't changed. Even if you hate me I will still love you, and that's why I want you to be my bride. If you changing will make you hate me more I'd rather you not change," his eyes were hooded. "So don't think that I'm selfless because at the end of the day, it's still my own interests I'm looking out for," he smiled crookedly. Before she could spit out a response, he leant towards her.

His lips brushed very lightly against hers, and he withdrew before she could bite down in response. She wanted to slap him for daring to kiss her, and she wanted to spit too, but he caught her wrists before she could do any of that. She glared at him, hating how she couldn't retaliate at all in her weakened state. "I'll send you back home now – you're well enough to travel if you can look at me with such _murder _in your eyes," he uttered in a sing-song kind of way. "My sweet Miku…I suppose I'll see you in school tomorrow. I look forward to it," his eyelids lowered, lashes feathering against his high cheekbones, "especially since after tonight, I don't think I need to avoid you anymore, do I?"

"Why were you avoiding me to begin with?" that was something she'd always wanted to know but she never had a chance to ask him, since he always walked away the moment he saw she was anywhere nearby. She always figured that it was because he was a vampire now, and maybe he guessed she was a Hunter – though she had no idea how he could possibly have done that since there was no obvious sign she was one. Hunters didn't exactly have any possession that marked them different from other humans.

When he smiled, she saw a glint of sharp canine and his gaze, once again, landed on her neck; suddenly a chill ran down her back. "Because, my sweet Miku," he answered, "you smelled so good that if I went anywhere near you, you would drive me crazy," he smiled sweetly. "And we all know what happens when a vampire is driven mad now, don't we?"

* * *

><p><em><strong>Solitaryloner: <strong>__Decided to mess around with the vampire AU that's in my drabble series, though obviously some details were changed here and there._


	2. Chapter 2

Miku shouldered her bag and moved stiffly through the crowd, flashing a bright smile at whoever stopped and talked to her. Smiling was the last thing she wanted to do.

Last night, Len dropped her off near her house – he didn't want to go right to her doorstep because her parents still had no idea he was back, and he didn't want to alert them to his presence or the fact that he had converted to one of the _nosferatu_. The whole drive back, she recalled, was silent – she had nothing to say to him, or he to her. It was the kind of silence that made you think, and think throughout the drive she did.

What he said…about her being strong, and being able to withstand the transformative properties of his vampire blood…she wondered if it was true and if she was really as strong as he made her out to be. She didn't think she was that strong, honestly. If she could allow herself to be beaten up by a group of Fourth House vampires then she was anything but strong – her failure last night and the subsequent events were forever branded into her, a bad memory that no matter how hard she tried, she could not forget.

Her parents saw how badly injured she was and almost forbade her from going to school today. She said she would go; she would just be careful. She didn't want to take a day away from school to recuperate – she knew herself, she would die of boredom at home. She wasn't the kind of person who liked to hole up in her room and use her phone or laptop or whatever all day – she needed to _move_, she needed physical interaction to entertain herself and if she stayed at home to rest, she wouldn't have that.

Someone bumped into her shoulder as they hurried down the halfway, and she let out a sound that was almost like a gasp, her eyes narrowing in pain as her bandaged arm started throbbing. _Dammit, some people need to be more careful. _She sucked in a deep breath and forged onwards to her next class, wishing that she had the ability to part the crowds like how Moses parted the Red Sea – but yeah, she couldn't do that because _unlike a certain someone who could influence minds and wills _she was human…_for now._

She dreaded the day she would change. It wasn't something which she bothered to fight because even with all of Len's optimism she knew that her change was a matter of time. If he was of the First House and he was their prince, then he was pretty much one of the most powerful and influential of the undead, and _no one_ could build up any defence or immunity to that kind of power, especially not when she ingested so much of his blood in such a small amount of time. She was the first she knew of to be fed by a royal – the Hunters had never encountered this before, since the royals rarely appeared at all in human society and they would never deign to give their blood to a human…

_Len is the prince of the First House of vampires. _She still couldn't believe it – couldn't believe that the boy she knew for so long (a decade) wasn't…wasn't human. How could he not be a human? She remembered him from ten years back and how distinctly different he looked then. He had brown hair, chestnut coloured with honey streaks through it, and sharp grey eyes. He had been human through and through – she knew, because vampires had a slightly different scent she couldn't name that marked them as inhuman. She didn't know what the smell was, but it was not unpleasant and…she had no idea what it was. A mixture of floral and herbal and…all sorts of scents…?

Anyway, Len _didn't _have that smell then. When he disappeared and then finally came back, she recognised him immediately even after the five years he was gone – the slanted eyes and high cheekbones and full lips that made him look so angelic when they were young remained unchanged. The proud tilt of his head and the slightly too-long hair he tied up into a ponytail at the nape of his neck – they hadn't changed. He was taller now but that didn't make him unrecognisable. What made her start and look again was the colour of his hair…it had turned from warm chestnut to platinum blond, and she wondered if he dyed it. And his beautiful eyes – gone was the steel grey, and in its place were two sharp, crystalline fragments of icy blue. And then he turned and he saw her.

She remembered that when he saw her he didn't move and didn't say a single word, allowed her to get close to him, her lips trembling and her eyes wide with disbelief. It was only when she was an arm's length away from him that he finally moved, backing away from her before turning away and disappearing almost quicker than the eye could see. She had blinked, confused – then his lingering scent wafted over to her and she gasped in shock, because that was the scent of a vampire and it came…from Len?

She didn't want to believe it, and couldn't believe that this was possible, that the boy she knew since she was a little girl was now a vampire. She wanted to find him again just to make sure her suspicions were wrong, but he avoided her whenever he saw her and she never had an opportunity to get close to him. She only believed he wasn't human when one day she stumbled across an empty classroom with the door slightly ajar, and heard noises coming from inside – curious, she looked in, and there was Len sitting on a desk, a girl moaning in his lap, and his lips pressed against her throat. There was something red, bright red, trickling down his chin, his fingers tightening around the girl…

She turned away from the door immediately and closed her eyes, feeling sick. The image of the blond haired boy feeding – it was stuck in her mind. She couldn't just push it away and pretend she never saw it. She still didn't want to believe it but she couldn't convince herself that her eyes were playing tricks on her. The very image of them made her want to heave. She tried to walk away from the classroom but found herself slumping to the floor, unable to move out of disbelief. She had known him for so long. The Len she knew would never have hurt someone, but this…this Len _drinks blood to survive._

Then the classroom door opened and there he was, his mouth clean of blood, his blue eyes hooded as he stared down at her. He didn't say a single word, and as she looked up at him, her eyes narrowed, she said nothing either. He held the door open for her, and she looked past him into the classroom – there was the girl he had fed from, resting on two desks he must have pushed together, the rise and fall of her chest indicating that she was still alive. She looked away from the unconscious girl back up at Len, knowing that he was proving to her he had not killed, and did not need to be hunted. But knowing that he spared her life didn't make her feel any less nauseous when she stared at him.

He saw the accusatory look on her face and said nothing, instead choosing to step past her and walk away down the hallway. She continued kneeling on the floor, still not wanting to believe the evidence that was presented so plainly in her face but knowing she couldn't keep running away from the truth. So she resolved that she would stay away from Len – unless he ended up killing someone, there was no need for her to interfere as a Hunter, and she would leave him alone. Some part of her still thought of the boy as a friend and she didn't _want _to hunt down someone from her past, not again.

She saw the deaths she gave as salvation but Len wasn't someone she could kill. She was so used to seeing vampires in their frenzy, unable to control themselves and raging for blood. But he wasn't like that. He had the control to stop, and she knew that meant he wasn't as thirsty for life and blood as the vampires she destroyed. And that made her wonder if killing him would truly be murder instead of salvation, since he knew exactly what he was doing and wasn't some human consciousness trapped in an undead shell.

"Miku? Hey, earth to Miku Hatsune, are you alive?" she saw a hand being waved in front of her face and blinked, jolted out of her thoughts. There stood Teto Kasane, who was watching her with a puzzled look on her face. Teto was a nice girl – Teto was the girl whom she saw Len feeding on, back when he first came to the school…she shuddered and pushed the thought away. _There, the fact that she's still here, alive and well and not a vampire, just shows that she's fine…that Len isn't a killer, not like the others. I hope. _"You've been standing here and staring at the wall for a while now. You sure you don't want to go in?" Teto tilted her head towards the classroom. Miku grimaced in response.

She had been transferred to a different class at the request of her parents. It wasn't anything to do with her duties as Hunter – they were concerned with the grades she was getting for Physics and Chemistry and had decided (on her behalf) that she was much more Humanities rather than Sciences inclined and had taken it upon themselves to meet the principal and request that she be dropped to a more arts-intensive module. Honestly, Miku did not like the arts. She was pretty good at Geography and Literature and could do decently in History but she didn't like the subjects that much. Mostly because they involved writing essays and if there was one thing she hated other than vampires, it was writing essays. At least in the sciences she had to write much less.

Another reason why she was being so reluctant about transferring to this new class was because _Len _was in this class and she didn't want to be anywhere near the blond haired vampire prince. She had no idea why he was in the Arts module rather than Sciences because he was pretty good in both, and she always figured that Arts was more of…well, a _girl _thing. But then she realised that since he was always surrounded by girls…perhaps that was better for him since he had a larger pool of prey to feed on should the urge strike. The very idea of that made her feel sick again. She hoped that it wasn't true.

Teto just looked at her again, her maroon eyes filled with curiosity as she held the classroom door open and Miku simply refused to step inside. She met her eyes – looked into the eyes of a girl who had been used as prey before, but probably couldn't recall a single thing about the trauma she underwent – and let out a sigh, stepping inside the room. She glanced around – the other students in this class of twenty-four (she made it twenty-five) seemed unfazed by her presence. But then, why would they be? She wasn't a new student, and they had all seen each other around in school before during their common lunch breaks. She was not an unfamiliar face, and after a few seconds of gawking most of them went back to doing their own thing. Well, most of them except for one boy, who continued watching her with an unreadable expression on his face. She chose to ignore the glacial blue eyes she could feel, practically stabbing into her.

Luckily for her, there was an empty seat right in the middle of the classroom, and it was situated next to the Korean scholar, SeeU. SeeU was mild, unassuming and pretty, and she was smart – Miku felt thankful that she was sitting next to her, since the scholar was quietly focused on studies most of the time and wouldn't bother her, _plus _Miku could ask her for help with their work if she ever needed it. Making her way over to the empty seat, she placed her bag down – SeeU looked up from the papers on her table and shot her a brief smile before returning her gaze to the documents she was reading.

Miku took a peek at whatever the blonde girl was reading, and saw something about the phases of the moon, and below that a word that practically leaped out at her from the page – 'lycanthropy' – then SeeU turned a page and the moon phases were gone, replaced by something about the formation of tors. Miku frowned, wondering why the girl was reading about lycanthropes, but maybe that was just some Korean thing that she didn't understand, and she didn't want to probe into something that wasn't any of her business. She settled into her chair, rummaging in her bag for her new schedule – they had five more minutes before the next class started. She sighed, closing her eyes.

She was so tired, and she wanted to rest at home, but she knew that if she had chosen to do that she would feel incredibly listless. So she continued forcing herself to stay awake and pay attention in lessons, since she was lagging behind the others – her old class wasn't purely science only, they did teach the humanities but at a less intensive depth compared to the arts-focused group. She didn't want to fall behind the rest. Throughout the day, she could feel that piercing gaze on her back, the ice searing right through her.

But she chose to ignore him.

* * *

><p>"How are you feeling?" she stiffened at the voice, knowing who it belonged to. She didn't want to face him so soon, but she should have expected that he would come to her sooner or later – he had been watching her the entire day, she felt his eyes on her back.<p>

"Fine," she said shortly, shoving her items into her bag and wanting to get away from him as quickly as possible. His hand shot out, grabbing hold of her wrist – she stilled and glared up at him, wanting him to get his fingers off her right there and then. He ignored the murderous look on her face, staring intently back at her. The longer he looked the more she felt her anger dying out – he didn't seem to be looking _at _her, but rather at something in her. He was looking so…_deep. _She didn't know how to describe it but she could feel him looking past the green of her eyes and into something else underneath.

Then he smiled. "You're still putting up a fairly decent fight, aren't you? Must be why you're still so full of vehemence. If my blood was working on you and converting you, you would be in my arms right now, no need for me to say a _single thing_," he leaned down and whispered into her ear, his cool breath making her shiver. She looked nervously around them at the rest of the class – some of them were watching him talk to her, but the rest were still largely absorbed in their own business. She exhaled.

"The link established between a royal and his convert is that strong, then?" she asked, unable to stop herself from responding to his words. She really didn't want to have anything to do with Len, but she also knew that since _he _was the one who had landed her in this mess, he was the only one she could talk to in order to clear said mess up. She knew nothing about being changed, and he was the only one who could help her. But she supposed that if he said she was putting up a good fight then it was probably good for her…_he said fairly decent, not good,_ her traitorous mind warned. Miku ignored the thought – she was trying to be positive, and picking on the words used didn't help at all.

His eyes gleamed. "Oh, you have no idea at all how strong the bond is. Like I told you last night – if I say come, you will come to me. If I want to peer into your mind and see the little glimpses of whatever it is you're doing, I can do that. My _mesmer _works better on you than any other human, since _you're _the one who is connected to me in blood. In a way, you're my child," he made a face at that. Not that she found the idea of being his daughter particularly attractive. "If you convert, you were created from me, and that is why I have more control over you than any other vampire would have. But why else do you think you never hear of royals biting and converting numerous humans? There are only so many bonds we can establish with our converts before we burn ourselves out."

Miku could swear that the blonde girl sitting next to her was listening intently to their conversation – her pen hadn't moved across the page for the past five minutes. Or maybe that was just her being suspicious and paranoid as usual. But she wasn't one to complain about paranoia – it was this paranoia that had kept her alive in her chosen line of work for the past six years. "Well," she said, then paused. She didn't know how to continue. Len tilted his head, watching her, and she cleared her throat, forcing herself to say something. "If I end up changing…" her gaze flitted away from him, not wanting to consider that path but knowing she couldn't ignore the possibility, "if I become like you, then what will happen to me? Is it obvious? The change I mean? Like it was for…you."

She gestured towards him, reminding both of them that this was not what he looked like in the past. Len frowned, blue eyes narrowing slightly, before he turned his head to glance at SeeU, who was still sitting next to them, gaze focused on the worksheet before her. "You don't have to keep acting like you aren't listening, you know," he said bluntly. To Miku's surprise, the blonde girl instantly looked up at him, her teeth bared slightly, and hissed at him – the demure, quiet scholar she only ever knew because of how she consistently topped the cohort actually snarled at Len, spite all over her pretty face.

"Perhaps I wouldn't have to listen if you didn't choose to speak right here," she uttered scathingly, rolling her blue-grey eyes. It was honestly the first time Miku ever heard the girl speak – there was the faintest Korean accent to her otherwise perfect English, but the sarcasm that dripped from every word seemed entirely at odds with the bland politeness she had come to associate the scholar with. "What are you _thinking, _infecting a Hunter?" she hissed. Miku blinked – _wait, she knows I'm a Hunter? _"Are you _insane?_ The Council will come for your blood…oh, but it's not my problem – you can settle it."

"You're ever so hurtful, SeeU," Len sighed dramatically, rolling his eyes towards the ceiling. "It breaks my fragile heart," at which the blonde set her pen down on the table and rose from her chair to face him. SeeU was nearly the same height as Miku (meaning that Len was almost an entire head taller than her) but as the petite blonde stared up at Len, her teeth bared, Miku swore that the vampire prince backed away slightly. It was the first time she had seen Len be anything but self-assured, and that was…interesting.

"You don't _have _a heart," she hissed. "If you did you wouldn't be here to begin with. I was here first. You're lucky that I never told Mother about _your _presence, leech – if she knew you would be _expelled _and you know that perfectly well. Don't push my limits or I might find myself getting sick of covering for you," she huffed, and Len just rolled his eyes again in response, apparently having heard this before. He turned away from SeeU, glancing at Miku, who was staring at the both of them like they had grown another head.

"Miku, this is SeeU. Other than being the Korean scholar and the genius of the level," he shot the blonde a glance, "she's a lycanthrope. That means werewolf, by the way," he added at the look of uncertainty on her face. SeeU nodded in confirmation of that, her gaze darting between him and Miku. "She happens to hate my guts, mainly because of this one time at this really stupid masquerade ball they forced me to attend and I might have spilled some blood all over her brand new party dress –"

"That stain never came out!" SeeU seethed. "You totally _embarrassed _me in front of everyone at the ball, you damned jerk – I was waiting for Yuma to appear and you ruined all my chances of getting in with the wolf royalty," she hissed. Len just shot SeeU a droll look, an expression on his face which stated just how much the blond vampire didn't _care. _At this point, Miku felt she absolutely had to interrupt the conversation.

"Wait, wait. Hold up. You're telling me that she," Miku pointed incredulously at SeeU, "is a werewolf." Both of them nodded. "And you knew each other even before coming to this school?" Again, both nodded. She frowned. "And is it a coincidence that you're in the same class?" This time, both shook their heads. Miku narrowed her eyes. "Explain."

Len leaned against her table, exchanging a look with the lycanthrope. "Well, this year there are plenty of the…so-called undead," his voice dripped with distaste, "coming here. Up to this tiny little town, it's so small that I really wonder how you managed to live here in the five years I was gone," he slanted his gaze towards her, sounding a little suggestive, as though he wanted her to probe. She chose to keep quiet, and there was a few seconds of silence before Len continued. "For some reason, this place is attracting us. It's situated right on top of where the key ley lines intersect, and this year is the witching year. Hecate's Moon is taking place…on that night, we will gather here," his eyes gleamed, "and…things might happen. We're just here to wait and see. 'We' being the key representatives of our kind, of course. Me, SeeU, Yuma probably, some others…"

_Hecate's Moon _– she had never heard of the term but the two words alone were enough to send shivers down her spine, and she always trusted her intuition. "What is Hecate's Moon, and what does that have to do with the undead coming here?" she demanded. She really didn't want a whole bunch of vampires and company congregating in her town. The place was peaceful – it was where they moved after her father got seriously injured in the line of duty, and they came here to lead a relatively safer life. Here seemed quiet and peaceful compared to the big city they used to live in, and she liked it that way.

"Hecate's Moon is something humans shouldn't have to know about, Hunter or not," SeeU said sharply. Len parted his lips as though he wanted to speak, but the blonde shot him a warning look, and he kept his mouth shut. "The less you humans know about what we do and our kinds, the better. Len never knew how to keep his big mouth shut. If the whole world ever finds out about vampires, we all know who to blame, won't we?"

Miku's narrowed her eyes – she didn't like the dismissive tone the scholar was taking with her, especially since she never thought the demure girl was actually…like this. It showed how little she knew her schoolmates. "I think I have every right to know," she said in as sharp a tone as SeeU. "_He _infected me – I'm no longer fully human anymore, and if I'm going to turn into one of _his _kind sooner or later, I think I should know what the hell you all are gathering in my hometown for," she pointed out firmly. SeeU just tilted her head at those words, regarding her closely. Len said nothing.

"You really don't know anything, do you?" the blonde finally pronounced her verdict. "Len likes to keep people in suspense. But don't worry, there's a ninety-eight percent chance that he will tell you everything within a week," she said drolly. Her voice was a little too loud for Miku's comfort, and it carried throughout the classroom. She half-expected the others to look up and notice what they were saying, but save for one or two confused faces, everyone else here seemed to be ignoring the three of them totally.

"Almost everyone here is part of us," Len murmured, noticing the worried expression on her face. Her eyes widened and she whipped around to stare at him, shocked. He smiled – the slightest hint of fang showed in that gleaming grin, and she bit her lip, unnerved by that little glimpse of canine. "Like I said, we've been pouring in for a while now. Didn't your lot suspect anything when the school suddenly registered twenty new students at the start of the year?" he frowned. "Oh, and as for how we all happen to be clustered in the same class, it's because I _persuaded _the administration to put us all together…with a few humans here and there to keep our cover, of course," _and provide me with a food source, _those blue eyes seemed to say, but she ignored the unspoken words.

"I'm guessing you interfered with my schedule then," she said blandly, assuming that her transfer into _this _class out of all the Arts classes could not possibly have been a mere coincidence. Len shrugged, and she took that as admittance. "Is it not bad enough that you changed and bounded me to you?" she hissed. "I really wish you wouldn't put your nose into my academic life as well. How am I supposed to focus on studies if I know I'm surrounded by the undead?" she hissed, her eyes glaring into his icy blue ones.

"Undead, undead…I wish that you Hunters would stop referring to us as that," SeeU interrupted her, sounding exasperated. "We are _not _undead. Only the zombies are true undead. I am still very much alive, thank you. You can refer to Len as that though," she shot the vampire a scathing look. "I said it before and I'll say it again, Kagamine has no heart and that makes him pretty much dead in my book," with those words, she swept away from them, leaving the classroom. No one seemed surprised by her departure.

Miku glanced at Len, who was looking bemusedly after the scholar. "You really have no heart then? Like physically?" she questioned him, feeling uncertain – it seemed that whatever she thought she knew about…about the non-humans was rather lacking. She thought that SeeU had meant it metaphorically when she said he was heartless the first time. Len looked back at her, an expression of disbelief on his face.

"Do you really believe her?" he asked in return. "She hates me," but at this point Miku didn't even know what to believe anymore. She always knew about the existence of lycanthropes but had never met any before. SeeU was the first werewolf she met and all this time, Miku had thought her human. It made her wonder how many other people she had walked past on the streets who weren't actually human after all. The only kind of undead she could identify was the vampires, since they had a distinct kind of scent…

It terrified her, because when she changed she would probably smell like one of them too, and she wouldn't be able to keep her transformation a secret from her parents or from the rest of the Council. What was she supposed to do then?

"How much do I actually…not know about your world?" she asked, this time sounding faint and uncertain. She really was unsure now. All her life, the only thing she ever had to do was hunt and kill the vampires who preyed on humans, murdering them like they were animals meant only for food. She never had to know anything about the fiends themselves, how they worked or how they ruled and lived – and, since the other non-humans didn't come under her scope, she knew even less about them. She knew they existed – the lycanthropes, the vampires, the witches and sorcerers and faeries and all manner of magical beings – but she never knew anything much about any of them. And now, it seemed that she would have to know…because she was going to be part of them.

"Everything," was all he said in response. "You know absolutely nothing about my kind, much less the others," he reached out to her hand, holding it up to his lips. She flinched at the soft contact, but held still as he ran his lips across the back of her hand. "But then, when you finally come to my side, I will teach you," she felt him smile against her hand. "Hecate's Moon affects more than just my world, Miku. It affects you humans too, and in ways too beautiful and too terrible for you to understand – that's why SeeU didn't want to explain anything to you," he whispered. "Once you warm up to being with me, maybe I will let you know more – maybe you'll accept that Hecate's Moon is a necessity."

She had a bad feeling about this Hecate's Moon if Len was talking about it as though it was a necessary evil. "No, don't wait for me to acclimate to your kind. You tell me now," she demanded, finally snatching her hand away from him. Her arm ached at the sudden movement, the bandages she felt around her limbs reminding her that she had yet to fully recover from last night. He frowned – there was unwillingness in his gaze, and he looked away from her as she spoke, something almost like sullenness settling over him.

Finally, dismissively, he responded. "SeeU's actually right, you're still just human, and humans shouldn't have to know anything about my world and my kind," he took a step back from her table, his blue eyes hooded. "I told you about your conversion last night. I think that's enough information for you…for now, at least," he turned, walking away. She wanted to rise from her chair and protest, going after him, but before she could follow her intentions he paused in his tracks and glanced back over his shoulder at her. His mouth opened, as though he wanted to say something, and she waited with bated breath, just wondering what he would tell her – did he decide to let something slip?

But then his gaze locked on her neck and she saw his pupils dilate for a second – it was only a moment that the look flitted across his face, a look of pure, ravenous hunger – and then the blond vampire was hurrying away, resolutely facing away from her. She blinked, wondering if it was a good idea to chase after him and demand her answers, but decided that she didn't want to go after a thirsty bloodsucker – she certainly wasn't in the state to defend against him if he really decided to feed from her neck. She couldn't get his parting words last night out of her head – "_You smelled so good, you drove me insane…_" – and she flinched, not liking the idea of being thought of as _prey._

She would give him a while to get over his thirst before she went to find him again. She sighed, her hand reaching up to rub absently against her bandaged arm – there was so little she knew. Why did things change so quickly? There was too much going on for her, and she wanted to believe that this was nothing but a nightmare – that Len had never returned to her life, that he was still human, that vampires didn't exist…she wished she didn't get attacked last night and that she never heard anything about Hecate's Moon, and that there were no non-humans invading her home because of said Moon.

But she knew it was anything but a dream, and if things were changing so quickly, the only way she could survive was adapt to the situation as quickly as she could. Adapting was what kept her alive in her duty, and she hoped it would keep her alive this time too.


	3. Chapter 3

In the end, she didn't get to see Len again for the rest of the day because after he left the classroom, he didn't come back. SeeU did, but when the Hunter questioned the blonde about the vampire's whereabouts, SeeU simply shrugged and said she didn't know.

Her questions left unanswered, Miku trudged back home, the weight of those questions making her shoulders sag. She hated not knowing about things, especially when all these things might possibly affect her life and death. She savagely cursed Len – he was always there when she didn't want him to be around, and now that she actually _did _want him to be available, the blond vampire was absolutely nowhere to be seen. _He has a wonderful sense of timing, doesn't he? _Vampires…no, boys were utterly unreliable.

She made her way home without collapsing from fatigue – she didn't want to admit, not even to herself, how badly her body was aching. She knew she had lost quite a lot of blood, and technically she shouldn't be up and about but recuperating at home was not something she wanted to do. Honestly, she felt a little light-headed, and was rather relieved when her groping hands found the doorknob, something solid to hold on to. She rummaged in her pockets and found her keys, allowing herself into her house.

It surprised her when she heard noises coming from the kitchen – her father was usually working at this time, doing administrative work for the Council, while her mother would generally be outside socialising or whatever. Her mother was aware of the Council but she didn't actually work for them – she deemed the job too dangerous, and was always trying to get Miku to stop hunting the vampires. Miku chose to ignore her mother, though she knew that her mother was only thinking of her safety.

She went to the kitchen, wondering who was home, and blinked when she saw not only both her parents inside, but also three members of the council – the secretary Gumi Nakajima, her twin brother Gumo, and Kaito Shion. The whole room turned at her intrusion, and her parents immediately leaped up from the table, hurrying over to her and fussing over her – they had become a lot more protective of their single remaining child ever since her elder brother was killed. Honestly, their mollycoddling exasperated her at times – she was eighteen and she was a Hunter, she could take care of herself.

"How was your day, honey? Was your new class okay? Are they nice? What are you learning now, do you think you'll enjoy yourself?" her mother fussed. Miku just brushed her mother away, wincing when her slender fingers landed on her bandaged arm – her mother noticed she had hit her daughter's wound and instantly backed away, uttering quick apologies. "Oh, and are you hungry? I made some cheesecake this morning –"

"Mother," Miku interrupted, noticing the trio from the Council was looking at them with bemused expressions on their faces, "I'm fine, I had a sandwich before I left school. And no, I don't need to rest because of my injuries," she sighed before her mother could open her mouth. "What's going on, anyway?" she looked at her father, who was standing there with his arms folded across his chest, watching his wife and daughter closely. "Why is the council in our house…is there some occasion I'm not aware of?" her heart was racing in her chest. She wondered if they had somehow managed to find out that last night, she was fed the blood of the prince of the _nosferatu_ First House. It wouldn't surprise her if they knew and wanted to order her execution – the Council had eyes everywhere.

"Oh, it's nothing," Gumi said quickly, before her father could respond. Gumi was, at most, four years older than her, but she acted like she was decades older. Miku didn't know how she felt about the green haired secretary most of the time. She was pretty nice, but Miku didn't like the way Nakajima occasionally talked down to her, like she knew so much while Miku knew nothing – somewhat like how Len talked down to her at times, too. The only difference was that…she hated Len, while she didn't hate the secretary. "We're just discussing some things – we need your father to research something."

"Is it about Hecate's Moon?" she asked bluntly, deciding to just throw the term out – maybe the Council would know about that, and provide some kind of explanation. To her disappointment, no recognition registered in all three pairs of eyes, though Gumo and Kaito looked up at the term, their gazes focusing on her. Gumo Nakajima was the head lycanthrope hunter, and Kaito Shion the head of the zombie hunters. Vampires, zombies and lycanthropes were the only non-humans that needed hunters – the other kinds _generally _didn't prey on humans since they didn't need anything from them. She never spoke to Gumo or Kaito before, but she knew them since they were important.

"Go up to your room, Miku," her mother now said softly, fluttering next to her anxiously. Miku thought that her mother reminded her of a sparrow sometimes – light, nervous and fidgety. "It's important stuff that they're discussing, and you really don't need to know about it – right now, I just want you to rest and recover from your ordeal last night," she fussed over her again, adjusting her shirt and sweeping her fringe away from her eyes. Miku frowned and stepped back from all the fussing. She hated being treated like a child, the way her mother was treating her now. It made her feel…useless.

"I want to know, even if I've been injured. I'm a Hunter and I'm part of the Council too; whatever they're talking about, I want to know," she said stubbornly. The trio at the kitchen table exchanged glances with each other, while her mother let out a sigh of resignation – she looked at her father, who seemed neutral about the whole thing, but she didn't miss the wink he shot her when the others weren't looking at them. She hid a smile – out of everyone in this room, her father had always been the most supportive.

"All right, let her stay. She can listen if she wants – like what she said, she is a Hunter too, and she has a right to know," Gumo finally said, ignoring the dissatisfaction on his twin sister's face. "Take a seat, Hatsune – you came in at just the right time," the green haired Hunter sighed, running his fingers through his hair. He was a handsome man, she admitted, with his sharp emerald eyes and light green hair that reminded her of a spring meadow – and she had always been rather appreciative of his good looks, knowing she was unlikely to have a chance to get close to him, especially since he wasn't from her department. It was surprising to her now that he was inviting her to sit with them.

Her father sat with her too, while her mother continued hovering in the background, birdlike as ever. "As we were saying," Kaito Shion continued, as though her appearance wasn't disruptive at all, "the numbers of non-humans congregating in this area have been getting a little alarming lately, and we really need to find out why they're doing this. For now, we cannot interfere – they are not hurting anyone, and it goes against our treaty," Kaito frowned. "But we cannot say that sooner or later, one of them won't lose control. You know what they're like…especially the vampires," the blue haired man slanted his gaze over to her, looking closely at the bandage peeping out through the wide open neck of her shirt. She fidgeted, adjusting the shirt to hide the white strip.

"It reminds me of another time they all came together. Ten years back," her father frowned, leaning back in his chair. Miku stared at her father, watching him speak – he had always been a charismatic speaker, and that was why the Council kept him in their ranks even after his injuries rendered him incapable of field action. "They gathered too, in another place some distance away from here…on this one's birthday, that's why I remember the date so clearly," he nodded his head towards Miku. "But I don't know what happened that night. I just know there was some disturbance, but no one was hurt and I don't really want to know anything about them that isn't necessary to us."

_Hecate's Moon – it has to be. But why does this event draw in so many of them? _She didn't voice her thoughts aloud; since the adults hadn't know what the term meant when she first mentioned it, she didn't think saying those two words now would help much either. It would be easier to wheedle the truth out of Len, she supposed. Gumi shrugged. "Well, whatever the reason is, the Council is worried. They want someone to get to the bottom of it…I don't know how they want us to do that, though. Not like we can kidnap a bunch of the undead and force them to spit out the reason. They won't say a single thing."

Her father sighed. "I know that, we all know that. But I know that in a few nights will be the birthday of the lycanthrope prince, right?" he glanced at Gumo, who nodded in affirmation. "I'm sure there will be an event of some sort. The undead invited us to go, you know, their usual practice and attempt at forcing peace upon both parties," her father snorted. "Perhaps this time we can actually accept the invitation, send some people to go and then find out what's going on in here, why so many of them are coming. I just wonder who to send. It's pretty damn dangerous, what with all the intoxicated leeches around – I swear they're the most dangerous out of the lot," he muttered.

And Miku knew exactly what she had to do. "Me, send me. I'll go," she interrupted, leaning forward and placing her hands squarely on the table. All the adults turned to her, a range of expressions on their faces – Gumi looked stunned, Gumo and Kaito simply looked curious, her mother looked anxious and her father…there was a faint smile on his face, and that was the face she focused on the most, knowing that he was probably the most supportive of her courage. Or her utter stupidity. At this point, she wasn't sure if she was being brave or if she was just being a complete idiot. "I have experience with parties, I'm young enough that they won't suspect I'm not there just for a good time, I'll be able to get along with the young aristocrats better than anyone else the Council wants to send, and I live right here in this town, so why not?" she argued.

"Not that we won't consider you, Miku, but…" Gumi's green eyes alighted briefly on her shoulder, and Miku realised that her bandages were showing again, "are you sure that you're up to it? It seems that…you're not in the best state physically, at the moment," the secretary cautioned. Miku felt her lips set in a firm line – no, she knew she had to do this herself. She _wanted _to know what Hecate's Moon was – she was certain that the congregation of the undead had something to do with it – and at the same time, perhaps mingling with their world would give her more insight to vampirism…to what becoming one of them would be like. She shuddered. It was not a very pleasant thought.

"I want to go," she repeated stubbornly. "They extended an invite to one of their exclusive little aristocrat parties; it's the nobility who will attend, not the common class, and we all know that their nobles aren't the crazed lunatics that we are normally sent to kill. I'll be fine," she insisted when the secretary still looked undecided. Kaito and Gumo were whispering together next to Gumi, and Miku wanted to know what they were discussing, but she held herself and her curiosity in check – she had to focus now on persuading the Council's aide that she was suitable for the job. She knew her argument was fair. She was one of the better Hunters too, and she was clearly a logical choice.

"I think Hatsune is right, at such short notice she's the best option we have available," Kaito suddenly looked up from his discussion with Gumo, his navy hair falling carelessly over one ocean coloured eye. Kaito looked cool and aloof, which was one reason why she never went anywhere near him – the zombie hunter seemed like he preferred the company of himself rather than others, and she didn't quite dare nor ever had the inclination to intrude upon his private space, though she wished she could talk to him sometimes – she heard stories of his prowess at strategy. "At most, we could send some people to escort her…I do doubt the undead would have anything planned, though," he shrugged.

"It's just a birthday celebration, after all," Gumo murmured, continuing from where Kaito left off. "It's Yuma's twentieth birthday, and it's a big occasion since he's getting close to the age where he ascends to rule. The undead will be more interested in having a good time and getting into the prince's favour than planning an ambush or anything like that – anyway, like what Miku said," he inclined his head in her direction, "the nobles are not murderous savages. Well, most of the time they aren't anyway. She won't be in any danger, at least not from them. It's unlikely the commoners will break in."

Gumi bit her lip. "Well, if all of you agree with her…what else can I say?" she asked helplessly. "Very well then, I will return to the headquarters and inform the Council of your decision – thank you for your help, Hatsune," she nodded towards her father, who simply smiled briefly in acknowledgement. "And you too, Miku. I hope this is a good idea," she muttered, her green eyes darkening slightly in trepidation. The Council trio exchanged glances at her words before they rose from the table – there was some fuss, a few muttered farewells, then her parents were sending them off and then her mother was giving her yet another lecture about how careless she was about her safety, just volunteering herself into 'ridiculous, unnecessary danger' like how she put it. Miku just let her words slip past her, zoning out – she wondered what the party would be like.

She let a few words slip out of her mouth to soothe her frantic mother, who thought that everything Miku did that involved that _other _world would put her in mortal danger, before making her way up to her room. Her father had said little, only patting her on the shoulder and telling her that tomorrow after school, he would be bringing her to the Council headquarters so that they could brief her on what to do. She sighed, reaching her bedroom and making a beeline for her comfortable bed – she threw herself down (gingerly of course, she hadn't forgotten she was injured) and looked up at her ceiling, just thinking and thinking. She wondered if Len would be at the party…probably yes.

Then she would have to face him again. She groaned, rolling over and burying her face in her pillow – she really didn't want to see him any more than what was necessary. Nowadays she was having way too much contact with him. She remembered how he had transferred into her school at the start of the year, and how he avoided her for the whole eight months he was here. And suddenly, in one night she was so deeply involved with him then she might very well end up his bride (though that was something she swore she would fight with every inch of her being). It was changing too fast, and she didn't like it. Miku was not someone who was particularly fond of change.

She liked things to be constant. But ever since he returned to her life, nothing was the same, and she hated that. Oh, he hadn't _completely _avoided her for eight months of course – there were instances when they met and talked for just a brief while, usually because he had no choice but to stay in the vicinity. His eyes always darted everywhere, looking at any place rather than her, and she wondered why – wondered until the day he finally blurted out that he still had feelings for her even if he was no longer the Len she knew. And that was the day he officially acknowledged that he wasn't human.

Immediately after that confession, it was his turn to be called into the examination room so he made his escape, so that she didn't have to face him, nor did he have to face her. And after that, he really completely avoided her…until last night, that was. She groaned again, wondering why he wanted her. She knew he liked her in the past, when they were both young – thirteen? He was her best friend until they were thirteen and he suddenly disappeared and she moved away. He confessed to her the night before he disappeared, and she said she would think about it and answer him tomorrow because she was so confused about her own feelings for him. But she never got the chance to answer, and that was one of her biggest regrets. Honestly, even now she didn't know how she felt.

Perhaps if she thought about the old Len, she could say that she liked him. Len was sweet and protective and he was always with her; she never felt lonely or unwanted when he was around and he always knew the perfect way to cheer her up or make her laugh. She didn't need the protection – at the age of thirteen she had already finished her Hunter training and she was perfectly capable of looking out for herself – but it was nice to feel protected by someone who wasn't a family member. But that was the old Len, the Len who was human and warm and familiar and comforting. The new Len, the Len who claimed to still love her…she hesitated, recalling his blue eyes and wicked grin.

He wasn't familiar at all. He was like a total stranger to her now – he wasn't…sweet, not anymore. In the five years he was gone – she still had no idea where he went and every time she mentioned his disappearance, he evaded the topic – he changed. While change itself wasn't surprising, it unnerved her because she didn't _like _change. How could she like someone she didn't even know? She certainly didn't know Len Kagamine anymore.

The most frightening part wasn't even how he was now a vampire rather than a human – what made her the most nervous was the way he evaded everything, how he refused to share anything with her, and how he was filled with nothing but secrets and lies.

* * *

><p>"Leave me alone," Len groaned, his hand covering his eyes – his other hand reached out, pushing the blonde pest out of the way. SeeU glared at him, placing her hands on her hips. Gods, lycanthropes were so <em>annoying. <em>Why was he putting up with her again?

"No, you listen to me now, you stupid vampire brat," she seethed. "_You _ruined my chances with Yuma the other time, so you're going to be the one to make it right. I don't care, use your influence or something to make sure I get a _personal _meeting with him!" she clung on to his arm, shaking him. Len sighed in aggravation, wishing he could fling the girl far away from him, but if he did that his sister would probably kill him.

"The only reason why I'm putting up with you is because you're Rin's friend and for some reason, she adores you," he hissed spitefully. "If you continue clinging on to me like a goddamn monkey I will _leash _you and chain you to my gates for an hour, watch me," he wrenched his arm free of her grip. She growled at him, the sound seeming entirely at odds with her sweet appearance. SeeU was the very definition of the saying, 'don't judge a book by its cover'. When he first met the lycanthrope, he thought she would be a fluffy little pushover. Oh, he had never thought more wrong.

The pink haired woman who was sitting opposite them, reclining lazily on the plush velvet window seat, let out a sigh. "Just do what she says Len, or you'll never hear the end of it," she stated, staring down at her glossy, perfectly manicured fingernails. The faery was not a welcome guest at his mansion and she was perfectly aware of that – not because Len disliked her or anything, but simply because wherever she went sparkling faery dust fell all over the surroundings and Len was honestly tired of cleaning up after her. Otherwise Luka Megurine, the faery queen, was perfectly at home here.

"Why should I give in to _her_, Luka?" Len's voice had taken on a slightly whiny edge now. "I always give in to her! Make Rin do something – she's Rin's friend, not mine," Len glared down at the blonde lycanthrope, who simply tossed her hair in disdain and turned away from him. He regretted allowing the other supernatural royals to use his place as a temporary meeting place – his mansion was practically a menagerie of magical beings now. _It's only for tonight, _he repeated in his head like some kind of mantra. Only tonight, just one night, and they would all be gone tomorrow. They were here to discuss how to celebrate Yuma Yamaha's stupid twentieth birthday. He really didn't care, but the other royals decided that they had to make it a grand event.

Like they cared…Len was positive that they just wanted an excuse to have fun and trash his mansion. They were all getting restless, being cooped up in this _pathetic tiny _town, and he understood their urge to party and have a good time, but using his place as their personal playground was not within his understanding. Len had never been a patient person. "If you don't arrange something, Len," SeeU now deadpanned, "I'm telling your pretty little friend _everything _you've been up to the five years you lived in the Arctic."

"Don't you _dare_," he hissed, instantly whipping around to face the blonde lycanthrope. SeeU simply sniffed, completely unfazed by the threat in his voice. His eyes narrowed. "I mean it. You can do whatever you want, but you leave her alone," his voice lowered, a tone rougher than he was used to, the beginnings of a snarl. SeeU rolled her eyes.

"Whatever," she said dismissively, before lapsing into a string of words he didn't understand and didn't care to understand either. Let her curse him in Korean all she wanted, he didn't particularly care for her opinion. Luka rose from the window seat, her blue eyes wide with curiosity – the glittering dust floated down from her wings, making a trail of silver as she made her way over the him and SeeU. Len quietly sighed at the sight, wondering which servant he ought to send to clean up her traces again.

"Pretty little friend? You have a new plaything, Kagamine?" the faery queen asked, her long pink hair lifting gently from her shoulders in a breeze he couldn't feel. The faery queen was tall, lovely and intimidating, with her regal demeanour and ever-present calm. The large, iridescent wings on her back fluttered lightly, releasing even more of her faery dust. The dust was precious and had highly magical properties, but that didn't interest Len in the slightest because he wasn't a magical creature. Too bad he wasn't a sorcerer, because only the witches and sorcerers really prized faery dust.

Then again, if he was a sorcerer, Luka probably wouldn't want to be anywhere near him at the moment. The faeries and the magical practitioners had never had the best of relationships. "She…isn't a plaything," Len muttered, refusing to say anything else. He wanted to keep her his little secret. He didn't want any of the other royal beings to know he had converted someone – well, not really converted yet, but was in the process of changing – and that she was his childhood friend and love and he was going to make her his queen when he came to the throne. SeeU knew, and Rin knew since Rin was his sister, but the two of them he could swear to absolute secrecy. The others…not really.

He didn't even dare to reveal her name to Luka. For all he knew, the faery queen could trace who she was just from her name alone – Len didn't know the ways of faery magic and he didn't really want to go into details either. Luka tilted her head, hair still waving gently in her personal breeze. He wondered if she ever felt cold in that constant wind, wearing nothing but her skimpy little white dress. "You sound like you…care about her, this new one," she said carefully. "I thought you only fed from humans to survive, and never cared about them…not in this way, at least," she waved a hand elegantly at him.

Len bit his lip, a bad habit he developed while he was human and had never managed to rid himself of entirely. "She isn't something I want to discuss at the moment," he said in just as careful a tone. Luka studied him for a while, her eyes narrowing as she scanned his face, before she finally nodded and relented in her pursuit of answers. Len let out a sigh of relief – the faery queen could be persuasive if she wanted, and he didn't want to pit his willpower against hers at the moment, to see whose guile was more convincing.

He wondered how Miku was doing. It was late in the night, already three in the morning, and he was certain she would be asleep by now. She was reckless, but she wasn't stupid enough to go hunt his kind when she still had yet to recover fully. He shook his head, closing his eyes – last night when he found her, bleeding to death in that alleyway, he had never felt more terror. Because he still loved her – it was a bitter admission that he could not run away from – and he couldn't possibly just stand aside and watch her die, especially not at the hands of Fourth House vampires. Those were worthless scum.

And even if she died, she deserved a better death. With a few angry words he sent them away – they didn't live to survive the night, but that was something he didn't tell Miku when she regained consciousness because he didn't think she'd want to know that. She didn't think of them anyway – the first thing she did when she woke up was struggle, trying to hit him, trying to shove him away, the sheen of unshed tears in her emerald eyes making his heart clench (he had a heart, despite what SeeU might think). He knew that she hated him entirely for ruining her, but he thought he was saving her.

It was selfish to change her nature that way just to make sure she wouldn't die, but he was desperate and desperate people did stupid things. He swore to stay away from her because her sweet scent drove him insane – he always thought she smelled good but now, she didn't just smell good, she was _addictive_, innocently seductive and even with the five years he spent in complete isolation, she tested his resolve. She didn't even mean to, but when she came towards him on the day he saw her again, for a moment all he saw was red – her neck bared to him, exposed and vulnerable, green eyes wide, and his fangs sinking deep into her throat, a sweet burst of crimson entering his mouth –

He managed to scrabble together the willpower to back away and escape. _Him_, Len Kagamine, one of the strongest vampires in existence, was for just the shortest instant weak and vulnerable enough to flee. He knew he couldn't go anywhere near her, because if he did there was a chance he would lose complete control of himself, and that wasn't something he could allow. He never found himself getting so drunk on a scent before – she smelled like a mixture of everything he liked. Chocolate, caramel and roses – whatever he wanted, whatever he desired, she smelled like it. _She _beckoned to him without meaning to and that…that actually scared him somewhat. He wouldn't admit it.

He wanted her but at the same time he hadn't wanted anything to do with someone who had such a hold over him. Last night though…last night changed everything. He fed her his blood – at the memory, his hand drifted to his wrist, where he had cut himself so he could let her drink from him. He remembered being filled with fear and adrenaline – all he thought then was that he had to save her; he couldn't allow her to die just like that. But now he wondered what she would taste like – if he fed her his blood, what if he took it back from her…what would it feel like to sink his teeth into her soft skin and –

He realised abruptly that his teeth were starting to sharpen, and instantly he stopped, closing his eyes and breathing hard. He had gotten better at controlling his urges, but he still lost control of his desires sometimes. Mostly when she was in the area, because her sweet scent would waft over to him and all he could think about was holding her gently in his arms and letting himself taste the sweet, heady nectar he knew would be her blood. It would be uniquely her, uniquely Miku – to his kind, there was nothing more intimate than sharing blood with a lover, and his desire to taste her didn't only stem from thirst but also that very desire to _connect_, to share such intimacy with her…

Because when one gave blood to another, one was vulnerable and compliant, and there was something heady about having so much control over another. Wasn't it natural, to wish to dominate someone entirely, just once, once in their existence? He wanted to know what it would be like to dominate a Hunter, and the girl he couldn't help but love. Why he loved her? He didn't know. He only knew his feelings for her stemmed since their youth and, even after years of separation, those feelings held strong. It actually disappointed him a little because he didn't _want _this lingering connection to his old life, but it seemed that even if his past life faded away entirely, _she _would remain behind.

"We should make our way to the lobby," he turned his head, speaking to the other two in his study with him. "I want to make sure that the rest haven't turned my place upside-down. I'm _never _allowing the fey anywhere on my compound ever again," he added, glancing distastefully at the silver dust that was surrounding Luka in ever-increasing quantities. The faery queen simply shrugged, while SeeU snickered next to him. He ignored the blonde brat – he would never understand what his twin sister saw in her.

Whenever he saw SeeU going up on stage to receive some academic award, he took note of her demure appearance and how quiet and calm she seemed to be, and contrasted that with the rowdy, demanding werewolf he knew and couldn't stand. He wished she would be more like her school persona when she was among their society; he might like her slightly more then. "Last I heard, Gakupo was in the midst of a magical duel with Meiko – you should put a stop to that," Luka suddenly said mildly in a conversational manner, as though they were discussing something bland and uninteresting, like the weather. Instantly, Len whipped around, eyes widening – Gakupo Kamui and Meiko Sakine were two of the most violent sorcerers and witches he knew, and having them clash together did not bode well for his property. He threw open the study door and hurried down the marble stairs to the landing, where he could hear oaths and curses and a series of explosions that, suspiciously, seemed to be getting louder and louder.

SeeU arched an eyebrow at how quickly the vampire departed, taking note that Len Kagamine seemed to be more concerned with his property than his interpersonal relationships, and turned to Luka, who was now looking serenely out of the window at the dark night sky. "Maybe you could have mentioned that before they actually got into the duel," she remarked matter-of-factly. "Everyone knows what Meiko and Gakupo are like – once they get into an argument over who has better magical skill, they won't stop duelling until they destroy the entire building." The faery queen simply shrugged.

"Where's the fun in that?" she replied. SeeU nodded in agreement, and the two supernatural beings walked out of the vampire's study together. It would be interesting to see how the prince handled the situation – he was royalty, it was only a matter of time before he started trying to resolve politics within their world, anyway.


	4. Chapter 4

That didn't feel like two hours. He was pretty sure that hadn't been just two hours. It felt like an entire eternity had passed since he managed to wrench Gakupo and Meiko apart. The two were now standing sheepishly before him, looking faintly embarrassed.

_Like they should be. _Len rolled his eyes heavenwards and placed his hand against his forehead, feeling an unfamiliar dull ache – vampires didn't really get headaches, and that spoke a bit for how much trauma the witch and sorcerer had just put him through. "You two," he started, "are in _my _house. That means you _do not _go around destroying the things in _my _house!" his voice was getting louder as he spoke, a sign of his agitation.

"She started it!" Gakupo instantly defended himself, pointing exaggeratedly at Meiko, who instantly let out a gasp of outrage and brandished her wand at the purple-haired man. Len growled low in his throat and snapped his fingers – soundlessly, four of his servants leaped out from the shadows and restrained the witch, systematically removing her wand from her grip and holding on tightly to her limbs, preventing her from moving. Meiko turned her attentions upon him, a look of murder on her face.

"You have no right to speak, now shut up," Len ignored the look of sullen rage on Meiko's face and snapped at Gakupo, who quietened down at once, backing away slightly from the angry vampire – no one wanted to see a wrathful bloodsucker, especially not when said bloodsucker hadn't fed for three days and Gakupo was standing there, being all weak and mortal and full of life, his red blood flowing through his veins and speaking to Len, a soft whisper only _he _could hear and understand –

He realised abruptly that everyone was staring at him now, and gingerly he reached up to his mouth – his fingers gently prodded his teeth, and he realised his teeth had sharpened again, two sharp fangs prominent against his pale lips. He sighed, closing his eyes and forcing himself to think of things _other _than sustenance, like how much he was going to have to clean up after Luka and her court left his house – after a few moments, the fangs retracted and his teeth were back to normal. "Don't make me angry again," he hissed warningly at the two, before he turned around and swept away from the hall.

SeeU and Luka followed serenely after him – SeeU because she didn't know anyone else here, and Luka because he was the only royal she could stand in the whole mansion. Yuma wasn't around since they were planning _his _birthday celebration, but the other royals were all here – there was him, the vampire prince, Gakupo and Meiko, the leaders of their sorcerers and witches respectively (Len would simply never understand why the witches and sorcerers had to choose two of the most immature magicians he knew to lead them) and the king of the zombies…Len wrinkled his nose at the thought.

Okay, so zombies didn't smell bad or walk around with their body bits falling apart or whatever (at least, not most of the time) but their taste and hunger for human brains disgusted him. Len always liked to joke with the king that they liked brains because they were pretty much _brainless _but the king had never been very fond of that joke, and would refuse to speak to Len for like, a week if he ever said anything like that. The king was very young especially for a supernatural – he was only twenty-five, seven years older than Len. Normally, Len wouldn't associate himself with a zombie but there was a certain…draw about the zombie king that made Len talk to him. Perhaps it was their similar ages; perhaps it was because they underwent similar circumstances…

Perhaps it was simply because the zombie king, for some reason, reminded Len of himself, and the resemblance was more than just their personalities. He shuddered, his earlier annoyance melting away as he wondered how someone he had never _seen _before his ascension to the throne, someone who was clearly completely unrelated to him, could look so much like himself…he shook the thought away. He learned a long time ago that some things were better left untouched and explanations weren't always beneficial.

Which was why he wasn't telling Miku anything about Hecate's Moon, _anything _at all – if she knew she would probably throw a fit. She was already agitated enough about being turned, against her will, into one of his kind; he didn't want to risk angering her even more. She was so weak, so human and so vulnerable, weaker than even the youngest faery or magician, both of which were considered the weaker supernatural species. He didn't know if anything he did would be too much for her. What First House vampire children considered a play-fight would be a full-out battle for a fragile little human like her, even if she was a Hunter. Hunters couldn't come up against a First House.

He realised that Luka and SeeU were still following him – that surprised him, he thought the two would have gotten bored of his silence and gone back to the main hall by now. He turned – SeeU and Luka stopped at once, SeeU looking at him curiously, Luka with her usual peaceful expression. No one ever ruffled the faery queen, and Len wondered if he would ever see the day Luka was worried or angry – he had a very strong feeling that when Luka was angered, she would be a dangerous force to be reckoned with.

"What do you want?" he directed his question sullenly at SeeU, who was still staring at him with a look of consternation on her face. He really had no idea how he put up with her for so long. SeeU was a good friend of Rin, his twin sister, who was still back home in Alaska because she didn't want to leave home too early. _Hecate's Moon is ages away, another week or so at least, _his lips curved upwards at the memory of her whining. _Why are you going so early? There isn't anything in that town; it's nothing but a snack bar._

"Well, I was expecting a good show," SeeU twirled some of her thick, wavy blonde hair around her fingers. "With more roaring and biting and stuff…you disappointed me," she sniffed, casting him a look of disdain. Len was tempted to respond by lunging forward and sinking his fangs into her throat, but two things held him back – Rin would kill him, he was pretty sure of that, and secondly…lycanthrope blood was absolutely foul.

"Just because I'm the prince of the First House doesn't mean I have to use violence as a means to solve all problems," Len finally settled on that response, forcing a smile on his face. "Vampires are not nearly as violent as the werewolves," he added as an aside, the smile on his face turning slightly venomous. SeeU just glared at him before rolling her blue-grey eyes, brushing his comment off. Well, what could she say in response? More werewolves died each year by fighting with their own kind than the vampires did. Vampires tended to work together more than against each other, unlike them.

SeeU was an abandoned child, an orphan. When they were young, his sister found the girl in her lycanthrope form, a blonde pup hiding in a hollow away from the whirling blizzard outside. Rin, being the soft-hearted (only when it came to animals, and also because she was only eight at the time – she was lonely and needed a companion) girl she was, brought the werewolf pup home, and their parents reluctantly allowed Rin to keep the lycanthrope as a companion. SeeU, as a result, had spent ten years living with the vampires. She always retained her Korean accent despite all this time, though.

It sometimes made Len wonder – if the werewolf was born and raised in Korea with Korean parents, then why was she found in the Arctic in the midst of a snowstorm? A lycanthrope child would have eventually frozen to death in such cold, even if they were a supernatural…but then SeeU had no leads on her parents nor did Len and his family, and SeeU eventually learnt to forget the past. It was still a sensitive issue though, and Len had learned long ago to never bring up the matter of her missing parents around her. She seemed like a total pushover but when enraged, SeeU could be vicious.

He thought he had a faint idea as to why SeeU was so antagonistic towards him, more than just the fact that he had spilled blood all over her party dress at the masquerade ball – but he didn't quite dare to ask her if his suspicions were true because if they were, he would feel guilty, and why would he want to risk making himself feel bad? "Are you still in contact with Rin?" he chose to break the silence between them – SeeU was still glaring intently at a spot some distance away from his head, and he didn't want her to keep wearing that look of distaste on her face. It was getting rather distracting.

At the mention of his sister's name, SeeU's gaze returned to him, losing some of its earlier annoyance. "Yeah, I am. She's fine, if that's what you're wondering about. She said she'll be coming over one night before Hecate's Moon, so…just four more days, I guess?" she shrugged. "Right in time for Yuma's birthday party," she added, her eyes widening slightly in anticipation. Len would never understand why all the young lycanthrope girls _fawned _over their prince so much – granted, Yuma was tall, handsome and refined (for a werewolf), but that didn't make him much different from the rest of the werewolf population, at least not in Len's opinion. Maybe it was because he was a prince. But then he didn't see _his _subjects fawning over him that way…

Well, to be honest, that was rather understandable. "That's good," he responded absently, turning to look out of the window. The moon was almost full, and he narrowed his eyes against the faint moonlight shining through his window. It would be sunrise soon, and that meant he was going to have to clear all his guests out of his house. He let out a quiet groan – the main hall and first floor was relegated strictly to royals only. The upper floors had been allowed to the royals' entourage, and he dreaded to think about what could be happening from the second floor onwards. He didn't want to know.

Luka took a step forward as SeeU, evidently having finally lost interest, turned and skipped away from them, making her way up the winding stairs to join the rest of the lycanthropes and…whoever else was left up there. Long, slender fingers were placed on his shoulder, and Len stiffened, unused to being touched by people who weren't his family members. Luka chuckled. "Still a flighty, nervous child, aren't you?" she asked.

He wanted to deny being nervous or a child, but when he opened his mouth, he couldn't seem to prevent the truth from tumbling out. "I'm still frightened," he admitted. "I mean, ten years ago, the previous Moon…so much happened. I'm terrified that something will change us all again, rewrite our history – what if this time, it doesn't affect me, but Rin or Father and Mother or even SeeU, that annoying little brat?" he closed his eyes, letting out a sigh. "I know that this event is important but I can't help but wish it didn't have to pass," he said, voice low. "Do we really need it? Their blessings…? We do fine without it, we lasted three centuries perfectly fine without their touch at all," he said bitterly.

Luka's fingers tightened around his shoulder, and he found that strangely reassuring though he was somewhat distracted by the silvery dust that left itself on his upper arm. "You are wise to worry, unlike what so many others your age would do," she laughed, a silvery, tinkling laugh. It sounded like bells and wind-chimes. "Hecate's Moon – an event that draws us together and gives the royals and aristocrats an excuse to have fun and wreak havoc, just for one night," she continued, her voice almost lulling him – he realised he was falling for the guile that was interwoven through her words and shook himself out of his daze. He knew she didn't mean it – unlike him, the guile in her voice was natural, not something she could summon or control. "Yet we cannot deny its importance, my dear," she patted his shoulder reassuringly, "for we are creatures of the night and we bathe in the moonlight. Without it, without them, we will cease to exist."

"Three hundred years," Len repeated. "Three hundred years without them and we always did just fine," he pointed out stubbornly. Luka shook her head, sighing – he turned, a little surprised, for he rarely heard the faery queen sigh. She was looking as wise and sagely as ever, but there was sadness in her blue eyes that he didn't understand and could not comprehend – why would anyone feel sad about Hecate's Moon? Anyone other than him, anyway…it never went wrong for anyone else before.

"Three hundred years," she echoed, "three hundred years that went fine because of certain sacrifices that had to be made, Len. One day, you will know. When you ascend to your throne, your father will tell you, and that will be the day you realise the true beauty of the destruction Hecate's Moon can cause," she shook her head, removing her hand from his shoulder. "But you are a strong child," she observed, the sadness fading away from her blue eyes. "You had to be to survive, a decade ago. Anyone else would have been driven insane. And whoever your…new interest is," her gaze flitted over him, and Len fidgeted, feeling like she was trying to draw out his secrets, "she will be strong as well." Suddenly, Luka smiled. "Anyone who can resist you has to be strong, my dear."

"What do you mean –" before he could finish what he said, words stuttering out through his lips, the faery queen swept away and was gone. Len frowned, thinking back to her words – _certain sacrifices that had to be made_…the words themselves were ominous, and he shook his head, closing his eyes – no, he didn't have to think about that for now. As Luka said, his father would tell him when he ascended to the throne, so for now there was no need to think about possibilities. He still had three years to go before he reached that point. Len turned back to the window, opening his eyes to take in the moonlight.

Night was always his favourite time of the day, but this time the silver moonbeams seemed painfully ominous. It reminded him of how little time he had left before the next Moon…reminded him that pain and suffering was always never too far away.

* * *

><p>"Change of plans – you're not going to school today. Get changed, we're going straight to the Council headquarters," a sleepy Miku was greeted by her terse father with those very words the moment she stepped out of her room. She blinked, still feeling groggy.<p>

"No…school…?" she asked slowly, uncertain if she was hearing things or not. Her father would never have allowed her to skip school unless she was severely injured, and since she attended school yesterday it just proved that she was still fit to go to her classes. Her father nodded, just one short nod, his green eyes searching hers intently, before he turned around and limped back down the stairs, leaving her alone on the landing.

Then that just meant that something urgent must have cropped up, for her to be summoned to the headquarters so early in the morning. She stilled – _is it…is it about me drinking the prince's blood? Though I didn't even know he was the prince…_no, she had to stop being so paranoid. Surely not – if it was really about that then they would have already done something about it yesterday, instead of letting it drag for another day like this. The council did things immediately and waited for none – she was bitten two days ago, and if they knew about that, they wouldn't have waited two days to execute her.

_Well, best to stop worrying about this and just get over there as quickly as possible. That's the only way I can put my worries to rest. _She made her way over to the bathroom to wash up, nervousness making her palms clammy. She felt like there was a deep pit in her stomach, filled up with sour bile – though she tried to reassure herself, she had never felt more terrified. It was the first time she would go all the way to the Council itself for _anything_. She was just one Hunter, so she had never done anything spectacular – or horrible – enough to be summoned before the whole Council before. To tell the truth, she wasn't even sure if she knew who the President of their Council was.

She was so scared that her fingers shook when she tried to push the buttons through each hole. She finally gave up on buttoning her shirt up and rummaged in her closet for a shirt she could just tug over her head, then wriggled into a pair of jeans – shorts seemed too informal for a meeting with the Council – and, as quickly as she could without aggravating her injuries, she went down the stairs and found her father sitting on the couch, his gaze fixed somewhere into the distance outside of the window.

Her mother was humming – she could hear her as she bustled around in the kitchen, probably making a pie or some other sort of pastry. Miku's mother was an excellent baker, and sometimes made little treats to sell or give to friends. Miku fidgeted awkwardly where she stood – she was sure her father knew she was there, but he did not turn to look at her nor did she really want to interrupt him when he seemed to be thinking about something. But then if she just stood there, wouldn't they be late?

"Your brother…" her father suddenly spoke, and she jumped – her heart clenched at those two words. _My brother…_ "He would have been twenty-one soon, you know," her father continued. "In five days. If only he lived…" Miku realised with a start how near it was to her brother's birthday. "I still feel like it's my fault sometimes," her father went on, and Miku felt the need to listen – she went to sit next to her father on the couch, and he continued as though he was barely aware of her presence. "I was the one who gave him the information, you know. Father and son, working together…made a great team, didn't we?" he smiled bitterly. "I didn't realise I got it wrong, that there were more than just three. And he got bitten as a result. I don't think I can ever live with myself."

"He wouldn't have wanted you to blame yourself though, and you know that, Father," Miku said awkwardly – she didn't know what else to say, because it was strange for her to comfort an adult, much less her very own father. In the past, especially right after she killed and released her brother, her father had been the one reassuring her and making sure he was always by her side when the nightmares came to haunt her – now, she was the one telling him that everything would be fine, and that was…so strange. "He would never have been able to live with himself if he knew how guilty you feel about his death. All Mikuo ever wanted was for all four of us to be safe and happy," she bit her lip.

_Mikuo…_her brother's name – it had been a long time since she last used it, the name invoking memories she would prefer not to remember. Her father glanced at her at the sound of Mikuo's name, green eyes slanting to meet hers – her mother had blue eyes, so she and Mikuo got their father's eyes. He smiled crookedly – the smile failed to hide the pain she knew he was feeling – and patted her head. "Well, I certainly hope so, kiddo," he said, voice sounding distant. "Come on, we need to get you to headquarters now."

And with just that simple sentence, the gravity of her situation came crashing down on her once again – she didn't want to go, the terror almost choking her, but she knew that she had to go. She would find out what they wanted from her when she got there.

* * *

><p>The building, from the outside, looked sleek and modern, practically oozing with commercialism. Anyone else probably would have mistaken it for any other firm that dealt with…whatever it was that the masses liked to gorge themselves on nowadays.<p>

Inside, it seemed like a normal business firm's headquarters too, from the cold glass surfaces to the marble floors to the large, solitary reception desk which was right in the middle of the room. Miku thought that the receptionist looked bored. There were several elevators that branched off from this room, and people hurried all over the place, going up different elevators at a time. Few people were using the escalators that were situated some way to her left, Miku noticed.

Its appearance was deceptive, though. This building housed the headquarters of the Hunter's Council. The upper floors _did _deal with retail and commerce (the Council produced military weaponry and equipment as a means of financing themselves), and this was where all the major decisions were carried out. Underground, however, was where the real business was, and as Miku and her father drew closer to the receptionist, who sat up at the sight of them, Miku swallowed – her palms were getting clammy again.

Her father seemed to notice her trembling, and reassuringly placed a hand on her shoulder. "Don't be nervous, you did nothing wrong," he murmured. "We're just here so you can get briefed about the lycanthrope's party – it's in four days, you know," he patted her shoulder. "I guess this matter is of such importance to the Council that they insisted on meeting you today, first thing in the morning. Our President has always been rather…hasty about such things," her father sounded almost disapproving, and Miku wondered why. "She would want to get this whole matter over and done with."

"Yeah, well so do I," she muttered mutinously. His fingers tightened reassuringly on her shoulder, and she exhaled, forcing herself to relax. She couldn't possibly go and meet the President while she was a bundle of nerves like this. _You did nothing wrong, _she repeated to herself in her mind, like some sort of mantra. Her father pushed her forward gently, and shakily she moved forward towards the receptionist. The woman sitting behind the desk peered curiously at her from behind owl-like spectacles.

"Hatsune," she looked up and nodded towards her father, who nodded back in response. "And your daughter, I'm assuming? Young Miku Hatsune…" she looked back at her computer screen, pushing the silver spectacles up her nose. The receptionist reminded her of her mother – birdlike and dainty. "Ah, you have an appointment scheduled with the President and a few other members of the Council, don't you? Use the elevator in the middle, four floors down. Good luck, my dear," she added, withdrawing from the screen.

_Good luck…_Miku swallowed, the feeling of dread threatening to swallow her whole. Her father noticed the way her hands started trembling again, and wordlessly he reached out, holding on to her hand. Her fingers tightened around his hand and she squeezed it, silently projecting her thanks to her father. Her father always knew when she was scared, even if there didn't appear to be any reason for her to be frightened, and he was always there for her without fail, always there to tell her that everything would be okay.

It used to be Mikuo who did that, in the past. Back when her father was more active as a Hunter and actually went out to hunt vampires down. Her brother was the one who would wake up in the middle of the night because he heard her whimpering and knew that she was scared their father wouldn't make it back that night, because he wasn't home at midnight the way he usually was – Mikuo would sit next to her on her bed and hold her and rock her back and forth until she was calmer, leaning her head against his shoulder. Mikuo was only three years older than her, but he seemed so…mature.

She realised that her fingers weren't clenched quite so tightly around her father's hand anymore, and wondered if Mikuo was somehow there, soothing her with his memory alone – did ghosts exist, if other supernatural beings existed? She wished so badly that her brother was still with them, but he was dead and gone, and all she could do now was try and be as great a Hunter as he was, and as good a person as he always had been.

Her father stopped outside the elevator, and she stared up at him, eyes wide with fear at his sudden departure. He pursed his lips. "I can't go any further – I was only authorised to bring you here," he explained. He saw the terror in her gaze – she could face down a group of bloodthirsty vampires, desperate to feed on her, but she couldn't handle facing the President and knowing the President was the one with the power to determine if she would live or die. His tone softened. "Don't fret so much, Hatsune," he used her last name, making her jerk up and listen. "You are a good Hunter, and you volunteered to attend the damn party – it never made me more proud. You're every bit as brave as your brother. Would Mikuo be scared now? No, he wouldn't – he'd be proud that he's going to risk his life to help this organisation, and you better be proud of yourself for that too."

Her father was right, Mikuo wouldn't be shivering like a pansy now – he would hold his head up high and proud, he would know that he was making a difference. She took a deep breath and nodded – she would get over this fear. After all, she couldn't possibly have been exposed, so she would just go there and listen to the President brief her on what to do, and she would be out of here – this place with its glass and steel and cold, hard surfaces was making her feel rather trapped, like some sort of modernised prison.

She stepped inside the lift and pressed the button that said B4, as the receptionist told her to – the doors closed tight, leaving her with one last image of her father and his reassuring smile, and then all she saw was grey and the bright fluorescence of the light in the elevator. She backed into the wall, waiting with her heart thundering in her chest, for the metal box to stop moving. She was hit by a sudden desire to stop the lift and get the hell out of there, but she swallowed the ridiculous impulse. She was here to see the President, that was all – why was she acting like she was about to get a death sentence?

_You know very well that's a possibility, _her treacherous mind whispered to her. She tried to ignore it – she was starting to feel claustrophobic in this lift, and thinking things like that wouldn't help in the slightest. The elevator finally came to a stop, and the doors opened, revealing a brightly-lit corridor with just one door at the very end. She stepped out of the elevator and watched as the doors closed, the lift going back up to the reception area. _Guess I should finish what I started, then. _She walked forward towards the door at the end, knowing that the Council awaited her behind that door.

As she walked, she found her mind drifting to other things, doing its best to distract her from the possibilities that lay behind that door, in the room…she wondered what school would be like now. Len probably would be wondering where she was, since she was always there and he _knew _she was always there, would only not be in school if she was severely injured or something. She wondered if the blond haired boy would be worrying about her, since she wasn't in school like she normally was. Then again, could vampires worry about anyone other than themselves? Did Len really, actually care about her?

_Of course he does, if he doesn't then he wouldn't have given you his blood to keep you alive. _It was a repulsive thought but at the same time, she knew it was true – a First House vampire like him would not deign to feed his blood to a human unless that human was of some importance. Still, the thought of drinking blood was disgusting. She couldn't help making a face – she could still recall the taste of rust on her tongue, and it made her want to gag. She would never understand why vampires drank blood. It tasted terrible, and it made her feel faintly ill. Blood…it just seemed so wrong to drink blood. _Well, that might be because you're human and humans don't drink blood, _her thoughts reasoned.

_First sign of madness, arguing with yourself. _Her terror must be driving her crazy. The walk to the door seemed to be taking a ridiculously long time, and she forced herself to walk faster, taking bigger strides. Then time seemed to be passing too quickly, and before she knew it, she was right in front of the door. For a moment, all she did was just stand there in front of the wooden surface, staring at the worn, whitewashed door – she was struck by an almost overwhelming urge to turn and flee from the unknown inside, but she knew that was stupid. _Besides, Hunters never flee from anything. Hunters are brave and strong. Mikuo would never have run away from facing this, I know._

And she was courageous like her brother as well. Taking a deep breath to stabilise herself, she reached out and knocked three times in quick succession. There was a moment of silence, where she stood there with her heart in her throat, before she heard a high-pitched, feminine voice say "Come in." Doing what the voice said, she twisted the doorknob with trembling fingers, and the door swung open, revealing the room beyond.

Her gaze took in everything inside – she saw Kaito Shion and Gumo Nakajima sitting on one side of the long, narrow table in the centre of the room, their gazes cool and calm as last night. Her eyes travelled the length of the table, noticing three other people there – two women and a man, all three looking at her quizzically. The only thing she noticed about them was that the man had light orange hair, almost blond, and amber eyes that were something between gold and brown, and that one woman had long, light blue hair that reached her waist and pale blue eyes that were not unlike Len's. The other woman was petite and very pretty, with inky black hair and eyes that really were pure gold – a mix of gold and honey, with a depth of emotion she had never seen before – Miku thought that beyond the stoicism, there was a faint sorrow hiding in those golden eyes.

And then she saw nothing else, because her view was suddenly obscured by a tall man with violet eyes and messy light blond hair – a corner of her mind took note that he could be considered extremely good-looking, and she would probably find him a lot more attractive if he didn't happen to be pointing a gun right at her forehead.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Solitaryloner: <strong>__This is my first author's note in a while. Anyway, I'm back from indefinite hiatus, but I can't really say much about my updates because I will probably disappear again soon, once I get a job. I'll try and find some time to update this story though, because it still interests me for now and I usually finish what interests me._

_As for other stories, they will probably be updated once I find inspiration for them again. I'm actually rewriting a lot of them at the moment – if you read Assassin's Creed from the start, for example, you'll notice the chapters are completely different now. The rewrites are in terms of writing style, so you can choose not to read the rewritten chapters if you don't want to because there is no change in plot, but I just prefer how the words flow now._

_So far, the only stories with major edits to the chapters are Assassin's Creed and Monochrome World, Monochrome World's rewrites are only up till Chapter 7 as of this author's note. I'll probably be rewriting Pleasure Slave and Lust Doll too, I'll update everyone when I'm done with rewriting everything._


	5. Chapter 5

"You've been restless all day," SeeU observed, looking at the blond vampire pacing the room, his gaze flitting from side to side. Len paused and turned to glare at her, and she blinked, looking slightly confused. Len pushed his fringe back from his eyes and sighed.

It wasn't her fault; he shouldn't be taking his frustration out on her. "I…yes, I'm restless," he admitted. "More of worried…Miku should be in school by now, she doesn't skip class unless she's grievously injured or ill. But she was fine just yesterday. Surely she didn't slip out to hunt last night?" he muttered, more to himself than to SeeU. The lycanthrope was evidently listening though, if the curious look on her face indicated anything. "She's too obsessed with what she does…it's going to get her killed. I mean, _I'd _like to see the world rid of Fourth House vampires as much as she would but by sacrificing herself? Surely she isn't that reckless…" but he realised he couldn't be sure if she was or not.

The Miku he knew, way back when they were kids, was reckless, to state it simply. She was the kind of girl who would just run out onto the road without noticing at all if there were cars approaching. Young Miku apparently once thought herself invincible and only realised she wasn't when she fell down the stairs and broke her arm. But she must have changed since then – people always changed, didn't they, be it for better or for worse?

_But Miku has never liked change…_he had to go see what was going on with her and why she was not in class, there was no way he could put himself at ease otherwise. Hurrying back to his table, he grabbed hold of his unpacked bag and slung it over his shoulder, preparing to take his leave, but he was suddenly blocked by a scowling blonde pest who _simply _refused to let him step around her to the classroom door. Len growled, low in his throat – he was getting frantic, and a frantic bloodsucker wasn't a pleasant sight.

"Get out of my way," he snapped at SeeU, fingers tightening around the straps of his bag. For all he knew, Miku was bleeding to death in some alleyway or something equally as drastic, and the more he tarried, the more his future bride could be in danger. SeeU just shook her head, as stubborn as usual. Len had never been more tempted to place his hands around her neck and strangle her to death. _Does she not see the severity of the situation? _Gods be damned, he rued the day Rin picked her up and brought her home.

"First, you need to tell me why," she folded her arms across her chest. He wanted to pick up the petite girl and throw her out of the way. "You already skipped out on class just yesterday; I'm not going to allow you to do that again. Your grades are already suffering and I'm tired of helping you with our homework," she said primly. Len actually snarled, and the blonde girl took a step back, blue-grey eyes widening – Len had never seemed so _wild, _so feral before. But then, he had never experienced true fear before either.

"Do my grades actually matter?" he retorted. "We're not here for a damn education, SeeU! We're here _only _for Hecate's Moon – I only came with you to the town so early because _you _were the one who wanted to study and Rin just wanted someone to accompany you and make sure you don't get into any trouble. When I ascend to the throne and become the _nosferatu _king, will it actually matter whether or not I know how to use complex numbers or…or know what makes up a hurricane or whatever? All this human nonsense doesn't interest me!" his voice was getting louder in his agitation, and he forced himself to tone down – he was attracting the attention of the other students.

"Then why are you still here in this school?" SeeU, surprisingly, wasn't snapping back at him. In fact, there seemed to be genuine concern in her eyes, and that shocked him – he was fairly sure the blonde hated his guts. The shock made the anger and worry fade, just a little bit – he backed down, eyes wide, wondering if he should answer. SeeU already knew who Miku was – it wouldn't make any difference if he answered her question or not at this point, would it? So he decided to tell her the truth about his continued presence in this human school – then maybe she would stop blocking his way to Miku.

"For her," he said shortly. "For…for Miku," he elaborated, when nothing registered on SeeU's face other than confusion. "I only stayed here because of her. It was never about the studies. Look, I could probably skip the whole year and I'd more or less understand what they're teaching. Father and Mother know everything about the syllabus; gods, they've lived hundreds of years, of course they know," Len shook his head and sighed. "If it wasn't for her, I would have dropped out of school the very first week I came here. _She _is the only one who concerns me and she's not here today. I have to go find her."

Maybe some of the overwhelming desperation he felt leaked out into his voice and reached the werewolf, because something flickered across her face and she stepped aside, allowing him to pass. He breathed a word of thanks and made to leave the room, but right before the door swung open and he stepped outside, SeeU spoke again – a single sentence that made him stop and turn to look back at her. "You care about her a lot, don't you…whoever she is?" she asked, no sense of mockery in her voice for once.

There was a moment of silence, until Len finally broke it. "I do," he said softly. "I really do." And with that, the vampire stepped outside, closing the door gently behind him.

* * *

><p>Miku had her hands up, eyes wide as she focused on the barrel of the gun that was right against her forehead. The metal was cold against her skin, and she swallowed – she knew that if she made just one wrong move, the man would pull the trigger.<p>

Vaguely, she heard someone sigh – she couldn't be sure, since most of her senses were focused on the gun pointed at her. She could hear the thundering of her heart in her chest – it sounded so deafening. "Nero, put the gun down," Kaito said blandly. Or at least, she thought it was Kaito. It might have been Gumo – she really couldn't be sure since she couldn't bring herself to focus on the voices. Never before had she stared Death so blatantly in its face before. Even when hunting vampires, they usually came right at her – here, the gun was pointed and ready to fire, but it was waiting. And she realised that it was not Death itself she feared – she feared the wait, the wait for Death to claim her…

The man before her, the one with the violet eyes and messy blond hair, the one the voice had referred to as Nero, gritted his teeth. "You need to make sure she isn't one of _them _under a glamour spell first," he spat. "How would you know? God, what with all of them congregating in this place, it's entirely possible that they're _working together _now. The fey could be masking her. She might not be human – might not even be the girl that we actually know," he scowled at her. "Maybe the real Miku Hatsune is already dead."

"Don't be ridiculous, we saw her just last night," she was somewhat certain now that the one talking was Gumo. "I'm sure that's the real Miku. Put the gun away, Nero," Gumo sighed wearily. "You're scaring her. That's not the way to treat someone from your own department, you know. We're used to your eccentricities, she isn't," he chuckled. Miku wanted to snap in frustration – how could he possibly find this situation _funny_?

Nero…there was only one man she knew by that name, especially if Gumo mentioned that he was from her department. "Nero…Akita…" she said slowly and carefully, testing the name on her tongue. The man's attention snapped back to her, violet eyes narrowed though there was a hint of surprise in his gaze – she took that to be a good sign. How could she convince the Head of her department that she was the real Miku, not some supernatural imposter? "The Hunter guidelines – you handwrote the last one yourself, it's not part of the original rules," she continued in her careful manner. The man was listening now, she knew. "If a royal vampire attacks you first, just stay still and pray that they don't feed long enough to convert you, because it's impossible to fight off a First House vampire." She remembered that rule simply because Nero had inserted that rule into the guidelines himself – it wasn't sanctioned by the Council because it had seemed so unorthodox for a Hunter to give up and just accept their fate. Nero blinked at her.

"You're one of my own," he said just as slowly. "You're cleared," with that, the blond man took the gun away from her forehead and retreated, tucking the gun back into the pocket of his coat. Miku let out a sigh of relief, realising only after everything was over that her legs were shaking. She prayed she would never have to endure something like that again – it was terrifying, looking down the barrel of a gun and knowing that if he did anything as simple as pulling back on the trigger, she would die immediately.

Nero Akita was the leader of the vampire hunters. She had only ever seen the man once before today – that was the day of her graduation, where he presided over the ceremony that marked them as full-fledged Hunters. He was only there for ten minutes or so – his speech, she recalled, was short and simple, and all he did was congratulate them on making it this far and warning them that the world outside was a lot different from what their training had equipped them for. With those cheery words, the blond haired man had swept away from the podium and returned to whatever he did as the lead hunter.

Then again, she supposed he hadn't known what to say at the time, because if she was not mistaken he was the same age as Mikuo, which meant that when she graduated, he was only sixteen. She didn't have high expectations of sixteen-year-olds when it came to grandiose speeches. Even at that young age, Nero had shown he was a great Hunter; he had the most successful Hunts under his belt within his age group at the time, and not only was he detached and good at running an operation, but he was also pretty good with a computer and was their resident hacker. It was little surprise that he was elected to be the lead vampire Hunter even at such a young age. Most Hunters were chosen in their early twenties, at the very earliest. Being the leader was…well, dangerous.

Now that the Hunter was no longer standing in front of her and threatening her life, Miku allowed herself to observe the room she saw once again. It was a fairly large room, she supposed, larger than what her initial impression had given her. In the middle of the room there was a long, glossy table, made of some dark wood, almost black. There were black swivel chairs lined up on either side of the table. Gumo and Kaito were seated on the left side, while the other man and the blue haired woman were seated on the right. The tiny black haired woman with the sad golden eyes was seated at the very head of the table, and Miku assumed that she was the President of the Council. She froze at the realisation – the woman looked up, and her golden eyes pierced into her green ones.

She couldn't move at all as the President stared at her – she was so small, Miku was certain that she was shorter than her, but there was so much _power _and intensity in that gaze; it was as though she was sussing her out, sizing her up and determining how much of a threat the teal haired girl was. Evidently, the President decided that Miku was pretty much harmless and those golden eyes looked away, glancing back at Nero, who had walked away from the rest towards the other end of the room. Miku glanced back at him – the blond man was now seated in front of a row of computers, tapping away.

As she watched, he reached out, grabbing a cup of takeaway coffee and gulping it down. She saw a quick glimpse of a black haired boy with golden eyes, someone who looked like the President but was obviously a male, before Nero closed the screen and replaced it with a game of Spider Solitaire. She frowned and returned her attention to the other five still seated at the table, all gawking at her. She stepped forward, uncertain and frightened, but she forced herself to look straight at them – _you did nothing wrong. _Her father's words floated through her mind again, and she straightened, forcing a smile.

"My name is Miku Hatsune," she managed to say it without stammering. "I'm a Hunter from the Vampire department," at this, she heard the sound of something dropping behind her – she couldn't help looking around, and saw Nero leaning back in his chair, holding on to several ring binders, his gaze focused on them. She couldn't see what he was reading. "I'm…I volunteered to attend the lycanthrope party in four days, to see what is happening with the non-humans. Why they're all congregating in the same town where our headquarters are located," she swallowed. She hoped that was a good enough introduction, because she had little idea what else she was supposed to tell them.

The raven haired woman listened, and when Miku was done she nodded slowly, her pale fingers reaching up to tap against her lips. "We know who you are," her gaze flicked over her, sizing her up again. "I am the President of the Council, Rui Kagene," she smiled briefly; a quick curve of her lips, and then the smile was gone. She swept her hand out towards the left side of the table. "Kaito Shion, head Hunter of the Zombie Department, and Gumo Nakajima, head Hunter of the Lycanthrope Department. I'm sure you've met them, along with our secretary. They came to visit your father last night," she tilted her head, and Miku nodded in response. She continued. "These two," she indicated the two seated on the right side, "are Lui Hibiki, the diplomat to the sorcerers, and his cousin Ring Suzune, diplomat for the witches. There's another Council member but she is not present today, she had an appointment with the faery queen. Oh, and you just…had an encounter with Nero," the President glanced at the blond man, who was still ignoring the proceedings, focused intently on whatever he was reading in that folder.

Miku looked up and caught the eye of Ring Suzune and Lui Hibiki. The two of them smiled reassuringly at her, and she felt herself calm down a little. They seemed to be the nicest out of the lot, though the longer she looked at them, the more she felt a little bit…well, uneasy. It was as though there was something _off _about them. She could not exactly put a finger on what, though she noticed that their eyes…their pupils were slightly more catlike than she was used to, the pupils pure black and almost slits. Still, they seemed to be nice, so she tried to focus on them instead of the rest of the Council.

She only looked away when she heard Gumo speak. The lycanthrope Hunter had stood from his seat and was now at the head of the table, right next to where the President was seated. "If you're going to attend the party, you're going to have to understand a bit more about the werewolves and what they're like," Gumo's voice rang with authority, drawing the attention of the whole room. "Werewolves are _nothing _like vampires, they are a totally different species. Forget whatever it is that Nero taught you about the leeches because the two species have no similarities whatsoever, other than both being creatures of the night," Gumo's green gaze rested briefly on the blond haired man.

Nero had looked up from the ring binder at the sound of his name. Miku, who was following the direction of Gumo's gaze, caught Nero's eye – the man stared back at her, his violet eyes narrowing slightly, before he nodded and gave her a subtle wave of his hand – _go on, continue listening to him. _So she turned away from the leader of her department and returned her attention to Gumo, who was patiently waiting for her to look back at them. She muttered a quick apology for getting distracted and he just shook his head, brushing her apology off. "What do you know about the werewolves?"

"Nothing," she answered honestly. She admitted that she had been a lazy student – she only read the Hunter's Guidebook up till the page about vampires, and abandoned everything else since those other creatures weren't her speciality. She didn't want to have to know anything more than she absolutely had to. Gumo's lips quirked upwards at her blunt honesty, and he exchanged a quick glance with Kaito, who looked faintly amused. Miku didn't know whether she ought to like being seen as entertaining.

"Well, I'm sure you know the basics," Gumo walked away from the President's chair, towards one of the large screens that hung on three sides of the room, the fourth side having been occupied by Nero's rows of computers. He snapped his fingers and the lights in the room instantly dimmed – the screen brightened up instead, and on the blank white surface Miku saw an image of the different phases of the moon. "The strength of a werewolf waxes and wanes with the moon," Gumo started explaining, his voice taking on a detached, professional tone. "They are at their strongest when it is near the full moon, like now, and become not very much stronger than a normal human when it is a new moon. Unless they happen to be a royal – the royal class are except from many of the limitations that the common class have, as I'm sure you're aware."

She nodded – Len, for example, couldn't be hurt by silver, though other vampires would burst into dust the moment she stabbed a silver dagger through their chest. Sure, he could still be hurt by the metal but silver had the same effect on him as any other metal would. "What you must know is that their physical forms are linked to the moon as well. Contrary to what popular culture would have you believe, werewolves are not _forced _to turn into their wolf form on the night of a full moon. It's a conscious decision to change. In fact, their basest form is that of a wolf, not a human. They consciously choose to stay in their human forms, and when they are weakened, they turn back into wolves. They can change whenever they wish, but there is only one night where most of them will opt to return to their basal selves, and that…is the night of the full moon," Gumo whispered.

She felt the hairs on the back of her neck rising – the image of the bright full moon on the screen Gumo was showing seemed to be glaring into her, branding its pure white orb into her memory. She recalled how round the moon was last night – full moon was fast approaching. "Werewolves are truly lunar creatures, unlike the vampires, who simply _choose _to be nocturnal because it's easier for them to hunt at night. They are in touch with nature, being wolves in their truest form, and the touch of nature affects them more than the vampires. The touch of the full moon, the moonlight which governs their power, is almost overwhelming to them – so much that they would rather stay in their animal form than stay as a human and get flooded by…information, senses, by all the enhanced feelings they get if they were to stay in their more advanced human form. That being said, it is a choice; some of them still stay as humans during the full moon."

"Full moon is coming," she spoke up, meeting Gumo's gaze. He tilted his head, waiting for her to continue, and she swallowed. "If full moon were to fall on the night of the lycanthrope party, then…would it be dangerous, since they're so overwhelmed by the touch of the moon?" she asked. She was starting to wonder if she should take extra precautions, since she was still injured. She didn't think she would be in danger still, but it was better to be safe than sorry, especially where the supernaturals were concerned.

"It should be fine, the nobles and aristocrats mostly have the power and willpower to control themselves," Gumo reassured her, one pale hand reaching up in the darkness to push his hair out of his eyes. She was utterly transfixed by his hand, floating through the darkness, how it was illuminated by the bright orbs of the moon phases on the screen behind him. "The only way you would be in danger at this party is if the lower class supernaturals break in – the werewolves, vampires and zombies, of course. The faeries and magicians don't usually need anything from humans anyway," Gumo breathed out, a soft sigh. "But if safety is a concern, just speak up and we will assign some people to tail you at the party – they will be there to extract you should something go wrong," he glanced across at the President, who had been listening intently the whole time.

As Miku looked at the President too, the black haired woman laced her fingers together, forming a steeple, and closed her eyes, like she was thinking. A few seconds passed where there was nothing said at all, and the silent tension was on the verge of breaking Miku. Suddenly, the President opened her eyes, and there was a burning determination in her golden gaze – Miku felt a thrill run through her, she had never seen so much fierce willpower before. "Yes, what Gumo says is right. We will always be on standby. The safety of our Hunters is our very first priority," she said firmly, the sweet, high-pitched voice Miku was realising she possessed seeming at odds with her sharp intensity.

Now, the tiny President rose from her chair, moving over to the screen to stand next to Gumo. There was something about her person, despite her diminutive stature, which commanded the attention of everyone in the vicinity. "On that night, you will go to the party," she stated, addressing Miku directly, "and you will find one of the royals to talk to. Comment on the congregation, do anything you can to find out more about their gathering. From what Gumo says," she glanced at the green haired man, who shrugged, "Yuma can get rather…loose of tongue after a few glasses of liquor. I would suggest getting to him rather than the other royals. Or alternatively, you can try Meiko Sakine and Gakupo Kamui, but Ring and Lui tell me that they are rather…volatile, and it would be better not to talk to them unless it is absolutely necessary," the two Council members nodded.

Miku swallowed. "What about…what about the royals for the vampires and zombies?" she asked, noticing they had left those two out. She knew that she would not be asked to question the faery queen – Luka Megurine was mysterious and quiet, and everyone knew that she would not reveal anything unless she felt the asker deserved to know. It would be better to focus on the other royals…or perhaps the lower aristocrats if she was really feeling desperate. She knew she could not let Len know what she was up to if he saw her at the party, though. He would probably throw her out, since he didn't want her to know about Hecate's Moon or _why _they were all clustering in her hometown.

"The vampire king...? I doubt he will attend, Leon Kagamine has never been very social," Nero suddenly spoke up from behind them, and they all turned – the blond man was now facing them directly, swirling his cup of coffee around in his hand. He continued. "And don't bother asking about the queen, if Leon isn't there Lily won't show up either. Perhaps their daughter, Rin, would be there, but Rin wouldn't know anything. I talked to her once, she's a little bit of an airhead," Nero shrugged. Miku shivered – whenever they mentioned the name of the king, Leon, she thought of Len…their names were just too similar for her liking. "Though if Leon is there, feel free…if he doesn't bite your head off."

Well, that was reassuring. "How about their prince, the Crown Prince?" she asked, curious as to why Nero never mentioned the son. At the sound of the prince, Nero's hand stilled, and he stopped swirling the coffee cup around. He glanced up from the coffee at her, his violet eyes narrowing, and Miku resisted the urge to take a step back – his gaze was piercing. She wondered if she had said anything wrong or stupid.

"Their Crown Prince is dead," Nero said shortly. "He died when he was eight. No one knows what happened to him," he shrugged. "None of my business either…though there are rumours that he didn't really die, that he's still out there somewhere. No one knows for sure, most certainly not me," with that, Nero turned away from them, placing his coffee cup down on the table and returning his gaze to the computer screens. Miku swallowed – _if only they knew that Len didn't die…_but then, she didn't want to tell them that, not yet. She wanted to go for this mission and she had the feeling that if she told them the Crown Prince wasn't dead and was, in fact, in her school, her mission might be held up for quite some time. "You might want to ask Kaito about the zombie king and why it isn't the best idea to ask him about this," Nero added, still not looking at them.

All eyes turned to the navy haired man, who looked slightly bemused by the attention being given to him. "The zombie king…well, no one really knows what he's like, to be honest," Kaito explained. "The zombies are a fearsome and violent bunch. They kill their kings if they don't do a good job of ruling, and I don't even know if they have replaced the old king yet. You know what we're like; our information always lags a little behind what's actually happening in their world. I'll only have an idea who the king is if he shows up for the party. If he chooses not to make an appearance, then his identity will remain a mystery," Kaito sighed. "And I'm _surprised _you even considered asking the zombie royalty. No one really dares to go near the zombies…a loathsome group they are," Kaito sounded faintly disgusted, "what with their penchant for brains."

"Well, when people are desperate they would try anything," Miku managed to come up with an answer so that she wouldn't look like she didn't know zombies ate brains – in fact, she really didn't know. She had to start reading the Hunter's Guidebook again. "And since we all know the royals are…different from the common class, I thought asking the zombie king would be worth a try. Whoever he is," she added, realising just how much she and the Hunters didn't know about the supernatural world. Her knowledge, _their _knowledge, was rather lacking – she wouldn't be able to find out anything decent about her change into a vampire. No, to learn more about that, she had to ask Len herself…

She had to force herself to accept that she might change at any moment, and when she did, it would be easier to cope with the change by at least _knowing _more about what would happen to her, rather than just struggle futilely against the transformation slowing working its way through her body. But then Len didn't want to let her know anything about his world, on the basis that she was still a human. It made her want to scream in frustration – then would he only tell her how to cope with the change from human to vampire _after _she was turned? Honestly, what was the point in that?

"Well, enough with all the dreary stuff!" a new, crystalline voice piped up – it sounded like the chiming of silvery bells. Miku noticed that Ring Suzune had stood from her chair, her hands clasped together excitedly. "Since Miku is attending a _party_, we need to get her all dressed up for the big night!" Eagerly, Ring lunged across the table, snatching on to Miku's hand. Miku instantly flinched – the woman had skin colder than what she was used to. Ring didn't seem to mind or even notice her reaction. "I'm going to make sure that you're the most gorgeous girl at that party," Ring now vowed, her silvery voice making Miku feel rather giddy. "You're going to _seduce _Yuma into telling you everything! Isn't that a marvellous plan?" Ring beamed. Miku just blinked helplessly back at her.

"Ring…I think that settling our escape routes and making sure she knows them by heart is far more important than dressing her up –" the President started, but Ring simply brushed off what the President was saying and dragged Miku out of the room. The door was shut behind them, and then Rui Kagene was left behind in the room with her other members of the Council. Rui looked at the shut door and shook her head, letting out a sigh. "She is ever so impulsive and hasty to act," Rui murmured, wishing that Ring would be able to keep her impatience in check. Lui looked faintly apologetic.

"Well, she is like the rest of our family, after all," the man laughed uneasily. "I should follow them and make sure she doesn't…do anything to frighten the child," with that, Lui rose from his seat and hurried off after his cousin and her hostage. Now, Rui was left with her other three Hunters. She shook her head, aggravated – her Council was always leaving her and disappearing, one by one. She feared that Kaito, Gumo and Nero would disappear and leave her alone too, and she fell back into her chair, gritting her teeth.

The other three Hunters seemed aware of her thoughts and they leant over to her, simply staying by her side. "Don't worry, Rui," Nero said, having abandoned his precious computers just to make sure she wouldn't fall into one of her panic attacks. "We'll find him one day. You just need to keep believing, have faith that he's not dead. A body was never found, remember? So until there's proof that he's dead, he might still be alive somewhere, you can't be sure," the blond man reassured her, patting her shoulder. But she bit her lip – she wanted to believe him, but realism prevented her from doing so.

"He's been gone for so long…" she whispered. "And he disappeared in Alaska. It was a distress signal he gave out," she cried, "and by the time anyone reached there he was gone! Maybe there's no corpse because he was eaten or…or maybe it's buried under snow and ice, maybe it's stupid to keep hoping," she gasped out. Instantly, Gumo and Kaito reached out, each taking one of her hands in their own. They were her closest friends, her Council – the three of them and the fey representative, who wasn't here at the moment. Ring and Lui were new to the Council and so had yet to establish a close relationship with the President, but the others had all gone up to the Council around the same period she did, and they had settled major matters together – enduring hardship and complications together had forged a strong bond within the whole group. She could not imagine what it would be like if the three of them ever left her alone as well.

"You need to get over the abandonment issues you have, Rui Kagene," Gumo said quietly and intensely, his fingers gripping her hand tightly. She squeezed back in response. "_He _did not abandon you. A distress signal meant there were complications – he would not have left you alone if he couldn't help it, so stop thinking that no one wants you. We are your friends and we won't leave you alone when you're in trouble. You need to stop thinking of the past every time you see people walking away from you," he said fiercely. Rui trembled and tried to stop herself from doing so – they were the only ones who ever saw the weak and vulnerable President, and knew exactly _why _she was no longer the strong pillar that they once knew and relied on. She wanted to be like that again.

But she couldn't. She simply could not, because she was incredibly weak and pathetic now. Without him she was nothing. She was seen as the Council's pillar of strength and support, but he was her own personal source of strength too – without him, she felt like everything she said and did was nothing but an act, and one day she would fall into pieces, slowly crumbling apart. But she smiled and reassured her friends that she was fine. Kaito and Nero looked unconvinced, but Gumo simply squeezed her hand again and slowly let go. The green haired man had always been the most intuitive of the Council, and he knew that not to show faith in the vulnerable President would make her feel even more insecure about herself. He whispered to the other two to back away.

Rui Kagene closed her eyes, forcing herself to calm down. When she was sure she was no longer on the verge of a nervous breakdown, she sighed and rose from her chair, snapping her fingers and making the lights come on again. Since Ring had taken their girl hostage, then there was no choice but to wait for the trio to return to the room so they could finish the briefing. She tried to ignore the chill that ran down her back at the thought of the party coming soon – she had a bad feeling about this. She hoped that her intuition was wrong, but somehow, the more she thought about the party and thought about the teal haired girl who volunteered to go, the more she felt that something bad was going to happen that night – that everything would go terribly, horribly wrong.

But then it seemed like everything would go wrong the moment they agreed to let a broken, reckless, severely injured _human _girl attend a party meant for supernaturals.

* * *

><p>Len had completely no idea where to go to find Miku. He felt so helpless and so frustrated at the moment, but then he simply could not do anything – he had no leads whatsoever about her whereabouts and he couldn't sense her presence at home…<p>

He was hiding two blocks down from Miku's house, because if he went too near her Hunter family would probably pick up the scent of a vampire. They emanated this scent because it _attracted _humans – it worked like some kind of perfume or cologne, made them seem irresistible to mortals. _Like the drosera plant and how the sweet scent of its syrup attracts insects…before the plant devours them. _Though he was a whole lot more attractive than a plant, he was sure. Hunters, however, knew how to identify the scent the vampires emanated (it came from the venom in their saliva) and would be on guard the moment they smelled the scent. So Len couldn't possibly just walk up to her house and ask her parents where Miku was – they'd know straightaway he was a vampire and then her father would probably try to behead him with a kitchen knife. _No thanks._

He knew that if her parents didn't seem to be frantically searching for their daughter, then Miku was probably all right, but he couldn't put his heart at ease – he had to know where she was, had to see for himself that she was perfectly fine. His fingers clenched around the edge of the wall as he stared down the two lots at Miku's house. _What should I do now? _He couldn't go to the house and ask them himself, could he…his gaze alighted on a lone girl walking down the street, talking on the phone, completely oblivious to her surroundings as she waved her free hand about. Slowly, his lips curved up, a smirk.

Well, it appeared that he had just found the solution to his little problem.


	6. Chapter 6

"Hi, is Miku home?" the door was opened to reveal a beaming girl with black hair tied into pigtails, and soft brown eyes. Miku's father blinked and stared at her – he was fairly sure he had never seen this girl before in his life. "I'm one of her friends!"

"Really?" he asked, furrowing his brow – he had never seen his daughter with this girl before. "What's your name?" he asked, deciding to at least find out who she was first. Maybe she really was Miku's friend…there seemed to be nothing otherworldly about this girl at all, but then she might be a _human _danger. Non-humans weren't the only beings who could harm others. Humans could always harm other people too.

"Yuki, Yuki Kaai," the girl was still beaming widely. He would have estimated her to be a few years younger than his daughter. How on Earth would Miku have gotten to know a kid of this age when she barely interacted with her schoolmates, even? And since this Yuki girl was so young – maybe thirteen, at the very most – shouldn't she be in school instead of standing outside his door, looking for Miku? "Uh, I moved here recently, to live with my aunt. I got lost and Miku gave me directions! I'm here to thank her," the girl shrugged off her backpack and rummaged around inside it, pulling out something that looked like a bento lunch. He blinked – this was all…a little strange and sudden.

"Well, she's not in at the moment anyway," he answered, deciding that he could at least tell the girl that much, even if he had no idea who she was. "She's…elsewhere," he said vaguely. "She had some important…extra-curricular programme to attend. You might want to try again tomorrow instead if you want to thank her personally…"

The girl's face fell slightly, but she continued holding the bento out. "It's all right, I'll just give this to her first then!" she chirped, chipper as ever. "Would you tell her that I said thanks? It was just two nights ago; I was lost in the streets near the church and she helped me get out of there. It was really scary, I could hear a lot of commotion in the alleys and I thought maybe there were gangsters there," she visibly shuddered. _Two nights ago…Miku was out hunting two nights ago. This girl is lucky she didn't get targeted by the vampires. _Miku's father reached out and accepted the bento. The girl grinned once again and waved cheerily before she turned around and left the house, leaving him looking confusedly at the bento. What was he supposed to do with the extra food?

"Hey, hey wait!" he called out before the girl could step out of the front yard, causing her to turn around and face him, a quizzical look on her face. "How did you know where she lives, did Miku give you directions to her house?" he asked. Now _that _didn't sound like his daughter at all. Miku wasn't the type who talked that much to complete strangers. He was surprised that this girl even knew Miku's name at all. Yuki hesitated.

When she next spoke, her voice was a little flatter than her upbeat tone earlier. "I asked around about Miku Hatsune and someone from her school pointed me here," she said. "I need to go home now, my aunt will worry about me," she added, sounding a little more distracted now. He nodded slowly, waving at her, and she waved back, skipping away down the driveway and following the road – a few moments later, she turned a bend on to the next street and was gone. He frowned down at the bento that was still in his hands – well, that was strange. He would be sure to ask Miku about this Yuki when she got home from her Council meeting. Speaking of which, she should be home soon…

He turned around, going back inside the house. His wife, Miku's mother, came to meet him as he entered the kitchen, still frowning down at the cloth-wrapped bento in his hands. "What's this?" she asked curiously, her hands encased in kitchen mitts. There was a dab of flour on her cheek, and he reached out with one hand, wiping the flour away. His wife, even after decades of marriage, was still an absolutely beautiful woman – back when he was a Hunter, he had never spent enough time with her, being called on all the time to track down rogue leeches. This, he supposed, was the bright side of his injuries – he now had more time to spend with the remaining family members he had.

"Some kid," he shrugged, placing the bento down on the kitchen table. He didn't really want to open it since it wasn't meant for him; he doubted the kid would be trying to poison Miku or anything like that anyway, at least not intentionally. "She said Miku gave her directions out of the alleys two nights ago, and she came over with this bento to thank her," he tilted his head. The cloth the bento was wrapped in was patterned with bright red apples. "I have never seen that kid in my life," he added as an afterthought.

"How did she even find her way here? Miku wouldn't have given her our address, would she?" his wife frowned a little, taking the mitts off and placing them on the hook in the wall. He shook his head – Miku was private and hated knowing or saying anything that was more than necessary. The girl, that Yuki, must have been very persistent if she had managed to ask for directions all the way here. It unnerved him somewhat – either Yuki was very, very grateful towards Miku or there was something else behind the gesture…

"I guess we'll ask Miku about her when she comes back home," he answered. "Until then, shall we eat?" he smiled, smelling the homely aroma of chicken pie wafting through the kitchen. She smiled in response and went over to the oven, peering down to look at her pie. Chicken pie was one of his favourite pastries because she baked it so very well.

"Not yet, a few more minutes," she answered, straightening back up. As she spoke, he slunk over to her and wrapped his arms around her waist. She giggled like a young girl and reached up, kissing him on the cheek. If Miku was home now, she would probably gag and leave the kitchen…his lips curled up into a smile. Miku was never very fond of displays of affection, claiming that she would rather stay single for the rest of her life.

_I wonder why she's taking so long. Does the Council really have that much to brief her about? I wouldn't think so…_he frowned. If she wasn't back in an hour, perhaps he would make a trip down to the headquarters personally to see what was going on there.

Meanwhile, an agitated Len was pacing the sidewalk in the park that was a little distance away from Miku's house. When he finally saw a girl with two dark pigtails and warm chocolate eyes, he stopped pacing, instantly rushing over to her impatiently.

"So what did they say?" he demanded. The girl's eyes were slightly glazed, and he waved his hand before her face. "Speak now – _to me_," he whispered, coating his voice with the honey-sweet guile few people could withstand. The girl's eyes narrowed slightly, the mind trying to resist his words for a few futile seconds – eventually, she succumbed, and he saw those chocolate eyes darken into almost black. He knew that it was not really necessary to bend her will to his this way, but it was the fastest way to get his answers.

"A man, her father, said that she had special extra-curricular activities elsewhere and that if I want to find her again, it would be best to try tomorrow," the girl said flatly, her voice completely lacking any expression. Len frowned – _extra-curricular activities…_but she wasn't in school. That probably meant she was…doing something Hunter-related. But what could she possibly be doing in the daylight? Only the aristocrat classes had the strength to stay out in the sun – the weaker vampires usually came out only at night, the brightness of the sun too much for their sensitive eyes. In fact, it was a little too much for Len's eyes too – if he stayed outside too long, he would start feeling rather giddy.

He just hoped she wasn't doing anything dangerous. If her father didn't appear worried, then surely she was all right – the man used to be an extremely dangerous Hunter, but even he would not expect his precious daughter to hunt or do anything life-risking when she was in such a state. Nevertheless, he was worried. How could he not be worried when he had totally no idea where she was and what she was doing? Even if her father didn't think she was in danger, she might have ended up aggravating her injures doing whatever she was doing right now. There were endless possibilities, and he could not see into the future unlike the fey and the witches. This whole thing was just hopeless.

"You…you are…" he turned back to face the girl, hesitating. The girl stared back up at him, her blank brown eyes and expressionless face making him think of a zombie. But then, she was little more than one right now – she was a puppet completely under his control. And that…that might actually come in useful, to have this human puppet under his command – he initially wanted to release her from his control right after she had gone to the Hatsunes and asked about Miku, but he was starting to change his mind. Maybe keeping the little human around would help him – help him to get into places he never could access, simply because he was not a human. She could keep an eye out for Miku as well when she was feeling upset (at him) and he could not approach her.

"Never mind," he finally breathed out, closing his eyes and wondering if he made the right decision. The girl remained silent, not showing any emotion at all at his change of mind. "Go home. Go home to your aunt, but await my call. When I call for you, you will respond to me, no matter what. You understand that?" she nodded slowly in response, and he waved his hand before her face again. "Come out of your trance," he murmured. The girl's head was flung back and she let out a low moan – her eyelids fluttered, and a few seconds later she reached up, rubbing her eyes. He took a step back from her.

"Where…where am I?" she asked, her voice groggy. "What just happened to me? I was on the phone with my friend and now…now I'm here?" she looked around and caught sight of him. She frowned. "Hello, do I know you?" she asked. "I mean, I don't think we've ever met but…you're kind of familiar looking," her frown deepened. "I think I saw you on the other side of the road while I was talking to my friend…" from what the girl was like when she was free of his control, she seemed to be remarkably chatty, even when it came to total strangers like him. She would be easy prey for werewolves, he thought.

"You fainted," he answered, hoping she wouldn't realise that she was standing when she came to – if she did notice that, then the lie wouldn't exactly work. "You came over to talk to me, remember? And I said I was feeling hungry so you were going to bring me to some café to eat, you said it had amazing apple pie. We were walking there when you fainted," he put on an expression of worry. "Are you feeling all right, do you need to go see a doctor?" he asked. The girl continued frowning, hand clutching her bag strap.

"I came…to talk to you? I don't recall that," she said softly. She peered up at him, her brown eyes still slightly dazed. "I don't remember where this café is," she said apologetically. "I don't even think there is one anywhere near here. I don't know what came over me, saying that…I'm sorry for wasting your time," she looked down at the pavement, scuffing the ground with her foot. Len smiled and reached out, patting the girl on the head – she hunched a little at the action, her shoe still kicking the pavement.

"It's all right, I was free anyway. Now, shouldn't you be getting home to your aunt and uncle? You should tell your uncle about your fainting spell – he's a doctor, isn't he?" he asked, making use of all the information he had drawn out of her when he first took control of her mind. She jerked back, obviously startled by how much he knew about her, but slowly nodded and turned away, waving goodbye. He waved back, a smile plastered onto his face – the moment she looked away, he stopped, that smile turning into a sort of grimace. Well, he knew slightly more now, but it wasn't much help.

She had Hunter duties…but in broad daylight, so she couldn't possibly be hunting down any leeches. What did that leave them with? Maybe she was summoned to the Council for something – he bit his lip, getting nervous. Had they found out that he fed her his blood recently and wanted to order her death? _No, surely not _– _her father wouldn't have been so calm about it otherwise; if they were really going to execute Miku, I don't think her family would even be at home, and they definitely wouldn't tell Yuki to come tomorrow instead to catch Miku. _Yet he couldn't think of any other reason why she would be there.

There were no alternatives, however – if Miku had Hunter duties then she could only be at the Headquarters. Perhaps he could just head to their office and see for himself what was going on – he couldn't enter the office, but he could do what he did with the human girl. After all, it was easy for him to bend people to his will, even if they were Hunters; only people who were extremely strong of mind and heart could possibly resist his guile and defend themselves against his influence. No, vampires were not mind-readers, but when he suppressed a human and bent them to his will, he could, to some extent, read their thoughts and control what they said and did. _Doesn't work as well on non-humans…_

He would go to the Council Headquarters then. He had to be careful not to let himself be seen, since the Council still had no idea he was alive. Everyone thought he died a decade ago – until now, _he _himself was still surprised he managed to survive – and he would like the Council to keep thinking that way. The less they knew about the vampire royalty then the better it was for everyone. It amused him sometimes, how little they actually knew about them – they only knew how to destroy the common vampires and knew absolutely _nothing _at all about the royals. He didn't think they could harm him. He was not invincible, but he had few weaknesses and the Council knew none of them.

_But then, they don't even know I exist. Only Miku knows, and I don't think she'd tell anyone. Not when her fate and my fate are so intertwined now. _The Hunter wouldn't want anyone to know about what happened to her, and if she exposed his existence, then she also uncovered the possibility that they would find out she was fed his blood. Oh, eventually they would know – because eventually she would turn into a vampire herself – but by then, she would willingly come to his side, and there would be no more need for her to hide anymore. _I feel she'll be happier as a vampire, actually. Less rules, less restraint, and we are so much stronger than humans – she can be as reckless as she wants, she won't die._

But he also knew that she would miss her family and friends. Her family would never accept her, not when she turned into the one thing they hated…he actually wondered why they hated vampires so much. He didn't know her family very well, but from what others told him, the Hatsunes were a known name in the vampire world. There had to be a reason why they held so much antagonism for his kind, and his kind specifically – gods, Miku hadn't even known that SeeU was a werewolf, and that just showed how much attention they paid the other non-human species. Perhaps he would ask her one day, if she was willing to tell him anything. Miku still disliked talking to him, it seemed.

_That will change eventually. _For now, he would make his way to the headquarters. He had a rather vague idea as to where they were located – he recalled going past the building with SeeU before, and the blonde lycanthrope commenting that it was by far the 'ugliest structure, made of glass and cement', that she had ever seen. It was, if he was not mistaken, located somewhere downtown, where the business district was. He started walking – Miku's neighbourhood was not very far from the area, perhaps a ten minute walk. He would be there soon, and once he was there, he would find out where she was and what she was doing. He wouldn't rest easy until he was sure she was safe.

There remained the matter of how he was supposed to get into the headquarters to begin with, without setting off a million alarms. But he would cross that bridge when he came to it – the first thing now was to make it there before they had their lunch break.

* * *

><p>Sometimes, Miku really wished that she wasn't a girl. She fidgeted in her chair, trying to ignore the little sting as Ring plucked and shaped her eyebrows. <em>Oh, this really hurts…<em>

"Is this necessary?" she voiced for the tenth time. Ring ignored her, having answered with a resounding 'yes' the first six times she asked the question, and giving up on assuaging her subsequently. Lui Hibiki, the other Council member who had followed them out of the room, was sitting on a stool at the other corner of the room, wearing a look of extreme boredom. She could understand his feelings entirely. She really hated makeup, but Ring seemed to think that a girl without makeup was practically naked.

She had sat through maybe ten minutes of Ring brushing and plucking, and already she could not stand it. It hadn't been so bad when Ring forced her into a white tulle gown that had slightly too many sparkly bits for her liking, but the makeup part was where she put her foot down. She was pretty sure that she had been summoned to the Council headquarters to be briefed on what to do, not to play fancy dress with Ring Suzune.

"Shouldn't we be doing this the night of the party instead of now?" she tried a different tactic, hoping maybe appealing to Ring's sense of logic (if that even existed) would help. Ring stopped using the eyelash curlers – those things seemed to operate too near her eyes to be considered safe – and tilted her head, that thought seemingly never having had crossed her mind. "I mean, if you apply all this makeup on me now, it's not like it would stay till the night of the party itself. It'll all wash off once I go home and take a bath, and then we'd have to do this all over again on the night itself. Isn't it a chore?"

"Well, actually…no!" Ring piped up, sounding cheery as ever. "I _love _applying makeup and this isn't a chore at all, but thanks for thinking of me, Miku!" she continued using the eyelash curlers and Miku resisted the urge to scream. She was terrified that if she tried to leave this chair, Ring would poke her in the eye with that metal contraption. She was sure it could do more damage than all her Hunter weaponry put together. "Besides, I'm trying to figure out what's the best look to suit you now! Sweet and ladylike?" she tilted her head in the other direction, musing. "Or should we go dark and gothic…you don't really seem like the sweet, fairy princess kind of girl, do you, Miku?" she beamed.

Miku turned slightly to stare at Lui, pleading for help with her gaze. The man seemed to catch her unspoken plea and rose from his stool, coughing discreetly. "Cousin, perhaps it is time to return to the President and the rest of the Council. Miku _was _summoned for a briefing, not a makeover," the man said tactfully. At Lui's interruption, Ring whipped around to face him – her eyes narrowed, and those catlike pupils slit further, becoming more reptilian than mammal. Miku saw the change, and she shuddered, unconsciously edging back in her chair, away from the woman – there was something decidedly off about her. Not just her, but also Lui…he had the same characteristics as Ring, after all.

"Are _you _going against me?" Ring hissed, her sweet, silvery voice changing – it became deeper, less whimsical, almost a growl. Miku gaped at Ring, shocked – she would never have expected such a sound to come out from the dainty, ladylike Ring. Lui noticeably tensed at the shift in her voice – his gaze slid over to Miku, and he tilted his head subtly towards the door. The message was clear as day. _Run, run now _– in fact, it was almost as though she could hear his voice in her mind. _Run back to the others and tell them that Ring has lost control of herself – ask them to send Gumo down as quickly as possible, go! _She blinked – wait, she couldn't have possibly thought all that to herself, could she…?

Ring hissed, a low, feral sound – without another word, she sprang at her cousin, her lithe body twisting in mid-air – she looked almost feline as she landed perfectly on her cousin, letting out a screech she never would have expected from the woman. _Run! _Lui's voice was urgent now, and she just did as he said, flinging herself out of the chair and running out of the room – she still remembered the way back to the meeting room just now, and she pushed herself to run the fastest she could, her lungs struggling to take in air and her sides burning. Her body was aching badly, she had not recovered enough to engage in such strenuous activity, but the adrenaline in her system overrode the pain.

_What's going on, why is Ring behaving like that, and why doesn't Lui seem to be surprised? Find Gumo…ask him to come down as quickly as possible. _She kept those thoughts in her mind, relief flooding her as she made the last bend and saw the door to the meeting room – she burst in without knocking, interrupting the other four in their discussion. They took her in – panting, dressed in a long white gown that faintly resembled a wedding dress, her teal hair partially curled. "Gumo…need…Gumo," she gasped out.

Gumo instantly rose from his chair. "Ring?" he asked, a simple word – but the grave way he said her name made her feel like he immediately knew what was going on, and that he understood the gravity of the situation. She nodded, hand placed against the wall as her body struggled to take in oxygen. Without another word, Gumo came over to her – she let out a little shriek as he carried her on his back, effortlessly piggybacking her. "Where is she? Show me the way," he said tersely. The others rose from their places too, following her and Gumo as wordlessly, she pointed down the hallway. Miku was starting to feel that this whole thing was a lot more than just Ring suddenly throwing a fit.

Gumo ran faster than she did, and she was somewhat grateful that she didn't have to hurry all the way back to that room by herself, and especially not after she hadn't recovered her breath. The trip there seemed to take longer than her run back here, or maybe that was her own nervousness making time pass by slowly – when they finally arrived at the room, which Miku had assumed to be Ring's room given the number of personal effects inside, what greeted their eyes was quite a terrifying sight.

Ring and Lui were wrapped around each other in a twisted mockery of an embrace. The two cousins were spitting and clawing at each other, their pupils such thin slits that they were almost invisible. Their eyes had both yellowed, reminding her of snakes. Both their nails had sharpened to claws as well, and as Miku watched, Lui writhed free of Ring, letting out a sharp screech – unbelievably, the man hovered in the air for a few seconds, _levitating right before her_, before he dove back down to attack his cousin. Ring darted out of the way, her light blue hair whipping around her, and met him with her teeth bared. It was a horrible fight, a fight with a terrible sort of primordial beauty. Miku was almost mesmerised by the sheer intensity of the moment, by the grace of their movements.

Gumo, however, was not. Without ceremony, he let her slide off his back – it was as if her weight didn't register at all to him – and bravely, or perhaps stupidly, he threw himself into the fray, narrowly avoiding being punched in the face by Ring. "Ring…Ring!" he shouted, grabbing hold of the blue haired woman. She looked so feral now; she reminded Miku of a cat with its hackles raised – nothing at all like the feminine woman she first met in the meeting room. "Get a hold of yourself!" Gumo hissed sharply at her.

Ring ignored him, almost like she couldn't recognise him – she continued looking past him at her cousin, who was standing just out of reach of Ring. He tilted his head and let out another sharp, birdlike screech, and Ring responded by trying her best to squirm out of Gumo's grip. Gumo simply tightened his grip on Ring – then, right before the whole group of them he grabbed hold of her chin and tipped her face upwards, lowering his lips to hers. Miku gaped at them – _seriously, she's furious and not very human right now and Gumo goes up to her and kisses her? _She glanced around at the other three with her – Nero, Kaito and the President. None of them seemed to be surprised by this at all.

She looked back at the scene – Gumo had already parted from Ring, and as she watched, the woman seemed to…calm down. Her pupils sprang open again, and the twisted snarl on her face was wiped away too. Her sharpened nails went back to normal. Something about her just seemed to shrink or disappear, and as Miku watched, Ring shook her head in confusion, looking around at all of them and her cousin, who was panting, his clothes in complete disarray and bleeding from a few scratches here and there. "What just…what just happened?" she asked. "Did I… have another episode?" she asked, her voice soft. She sounded almost ashamed. Gumo simply leant his forehead against hers, and the woman responded by closing her eyes. "I'm sorry, Lui. I didn't mean it," she whispered. "Are you…are you hurt very badly this time? I'll heal you, I'm so sorry!"

"No, no, it's all right," the man panted, holding on to his arm – she could see that the fabric surrounding his fingers was stained red. "I'm fine. No more than a few scratches, nothing that I cannot handle myself. You should…go take a rest, Ring," Lui's voice softened. "And maybe you can tell Gumo about it. It might make you feel better," he finished, wincing a little – Miku noticed how his fingers further tightened around his arm. She didn't think that his wounds seemed to be as light as what he made them out to be, but Ring just nodded, worry all over her expression as she stared at her cousin.

The woman turned to face the rest of the room, Gumo still holding on to her. "I am sorry that you all had to see that, especially you, Miku," her gaze slid over to the Hunter. Miku flinched back slightly, unable to help her reaction, and Ring's gaze saddened. "I know you must be scared of me now, but you can rest assured – I would never have hurt you. That was…what just happened…it was an accident, and I'll try and make sure it won't happen again," she said, her voice low. Her shoulders were slumped, and she looked so broken and defeated. Miku wanted to assure her it was fine, that she didn't dislike her or anything, but when she opened her mouth, no words came out, and she had nothing to say. Before she could just come up with something, Gumo placed his arm around Ring's shoulders and led her away. The blue haired woman went along with him willingly, burying her face in his shoulder, and she thought she heard him let out a sigh.

Nero and Kaito were with Lui, and the three of them were talking intensely, Nero gesturing at the scratches on Lui's other arm. They were talking too quickly and too softly for her to eavesdrop, but Nero and Kaito appeared to be arguing with Lui about the state of his injuries. Finally, Lui nodded, looking resigned, and the two men grabbed hold of him, slinging one of his arms on their shoulders so he was supported between the two of them. Without another word, the trio exited the room, Lui limping noticeably – the back of his white shirt was covered in crimson blossoms. Miku shuddered.

That left her with the President. There was nothing said for a while, and Miku stewed in her own thoughts, wondering what had just happened. She didn't understand anything at all, and frankly, she hated not understanding when the whole thing occurred right before her very own eyes. Why was everyone being so…so calm? This was definitely not normal human behaviour. But then, if Ring and Lui were not human, then what were they, and why were they in the Council? The Council was made up of people who protected humans from the supernaturals, so why were there supernaturals there?

"I'm sure you have a lot of questions about Lui and Ring," the President's quiet voice broke into her musing, and she jumped, turning to face the petite woman. Her golden eyes were boring into hers. "We shall answer your questions later, after we are done with briefing you. Ring has…done a good job," she observed, her gaze flitting over Miku. Miku blinked, looking down at herself – she had no idea what she looked like, since she had been more focused on getting Gumo down to the room than admiring herself. "If you look like that during the actual party itself, you will no doubt get the attention of all the royals…though I am not sure if that is something we should aim for," she mused.

Miku did not know how to respond to that, so in the end she chose not to respond at all. Instead, she led the conversation down a different path – "What happened just now?" she asked. "Ring and Lui…they aren't human, are they?" the President hesitated for a second, and finally slowly shook her head. "Then what are they?" Miku demanded. "Why do we have non-humans working in the Council itself – and Gumo, what about Gumo? Why can he calm her down so quickly and so easily – what does he do to her?" she could not stop the questions from pouring forth relentlessly. She was just so confused.

The President had her lips slightly parted, a tiny frown on her face, as though she was trying to figure a way out of answering all those questions – but before she had to say anything, a door creaked, and Gumo came out of the other room he had entered with Ring, looking a little tired. The President immediately turned her attention to him instead of Miku. "How is she?" she asked. "And how are _you_?" Gumo came straight up to her and leant down, whispering in her ear – at the sound of whatever he said, those golden eyes darkened, and she whispered back something in response. He nodded and straightened up, looking right at Miku. "Miku," the President started, "if you have any questions about Ring and Lui, you should ask Gumo directly. He is closer to them than I am, and he would be able to answer any queries about them accurately too. I will be heading back to my office – when you're done, meet me there later. Gumo will show you the way. I'll be making a detour to the medical wards first," she added to Gumo.

The green haired man nodded in acknowledgement, and then the President stepped out of the room, closing the door so softly that if she had not been looking the whole time, Miku would never have thought that she left. That left her alone with the lycanthrope hunter, and Miku turned to face him, eyes narrowing. "So what are Ring and Lui?" she asked, just dying to know – why couldn't anyone ever give her a straight answer here?

Gumo sighed, looking almost reluctant. "Well, you're right to say they're not human. At least not fully so…they're half human," he clarified, and her eyes widened. _Half human? _But she never thought that any supernatural would deign to breed with a human. They always thought of themselves as stronger, as predators, while humans were nothing but their weak and helpless prey – it would be like a lion attempting to mate with a gazelle, or any other similar analogy. Humans and supernaturals simply did not mix together.

"Then what's the other half?" she asked faintly, still reeling from the revelation. Gumo looked straight at her, almost beseeching her not to ask, but she held fast and continued staring intently at him, and finally he let out a sigh, running his hand through his tousled hair. She had never seen such a torn look on anyone else before – except perhaps on her father when they realised that her brother had been bitten, and was now a vampire.

"Meiko Sakine and Gakupo Kamui are cousins. Meiko is Ring's mother, and Gakupo is Lui's father – Ring and Lui took on the last names of their human parents to avoid being persecuted in the supernatural world. Yes, Miku," Gumo's green eyes met her own widening ones, "Ring Suzune and Lui Hibiki are half human and half sorcerer."


	7. Chapter 7

"Do you know what the most terrifying thing about fear is?"

She looked up at Gumo, who was looking back at her, perfectly serious. He was walking with her down the passageway, occasionally touching her shoulder lightly when he wanted her to take a turn or walk a different direction. It was the first time he had spoken to her since he told her the truth about Ring and Lui's identities.

She was still reeling from the discovery. If Ring and Lui were children of the leaders of the sorcerers, then didn't that imply that in the future, they stood a chance at becoming the leaders of the supernaturals as well? But Gumo had said no – the two of them were, in the eyes of the witches and sorcerers, bastard children, and had no recognition at all in their world. They were half human filth, tainted and corrupted by their mortality. The supernaturals never wanted anything to do with humans. None of them wanted to be reminded of the fact that though they were not one species, humans were still of the same likeness as them and it reminded them that supernaturals could get sick. They were not immortal. They could age and die. And who would want to remember that?

"What is it?" she asked back, after a few moments of silence had passed between them and Gumo seemed unlikely to tell her the answer without any prompting. She didn't know why he suddenly brought it up, but the silence between them was filled with tension anyway, and she was glad for a chance to break that emptiness.

"How it devours you entirely," he looked away from her, his gaze fixed straight ahead. "How a small little seed of doubt can take root in your heart and grow and grow, fed by your fears and insecurities and quiet little moments of desperation – but it grows so unobtrusively that you have completely no idea it's even _there _until it has overtaken your body and stretched its leaves out to the furthest reaches of your fingertips. Then it swallows you completely. Fear is a parasite, Miku," his voice had quietened. "And there is no one who doesn't experience it at least once, not even the supernaturals."

"Why are you telling me this…?" she asked, straightforward as always – she knew that this was the fastest and easiest way to get some direct answers instead of the long riddles that the Council members seemed prone to giving her. Gumo didn't speak for a while, and she resisted the urge to roll her eyes and sigh – she shouldn't have expected an answer from the lycanthrope hunter, he always had looked like he had millions of secrets. She hadn't even suspected that he and Ring had any kind of relationship when she first saw them in the same room. It was almost as if they were strangers there.

"Because you're frightened," he finally said, surprising her – she jumped a little, already having forgotten that she was waiting for a reply. "I don't know what you're frightened of and I don't pretend to know. I doubt you want to tell me," he glanced at her again, his green eyes searching deep into hers, looking for some kind of answer. She bit her lip and glanced away to avoid his penetrating stare; she thought she saw, out of the corner of her eyes, his lips curl up slightly. "I wouldn't like to add on to whatever problems you're already facing, but…" his words trailed off, and she impulsively looked back up at him again. He was no longer staring at her, his gaze fixed dead ahead again. "Perhaps it would be better if you were told another time. You have the party to deal with at the moment, whatever Ring saw in her vision can wait," she heard him murmur softly.

Of course, that sparked her curiosity. "She had a vision?" she asked. "About me?" she wondered how trustable that vision was. Miku knew that the witches could, on rare occasions, see little glimpses of the future, but that future was always changeable and it _did _always change, depending on the actions of those in the present. Apparently, even a tiny act like dropping a pen could send large ripples of change through the multitude of possibilities that was the future. "What…what kind of vision? Did she foresee something bad would happen to me?" her voice shook a little here. She tried to calm herself down.

"No, not really…well, I don't know, personally. To you it might be _bad, _to others it might not be. I don't know what to make of her vision and I don't want to try since I'm not the one involved in what she saw. I told Rui…the President," he added, noticing the look of slight confusion on her face – she was not used to hearing the President being called by her real name, rather than her title. "She said not to give you any details yet. She'd like you to be as focused on your task as possible. But what Ring saw worries me a little. Rui doesn't understand what it's like to be out there in the field…I'm not saying that she's weak and only hides in her office, but she's forgotten herself and when you forget yourself, you can't exactly remember what it's like to be in the shoes of other people."

Whatever Gumo just told her made absolutely no sense to her whatsoever, but she just smiled and nodded and pretended that she understood him. His lips quirked up again, another small smirk in response to what he probably knew to be an obvious façade. She decided it was prime time to change the topic. "So, what kind of relationship do you and Ring have?" she asked. "I mean, what happened back there…" she gestured a little with her hands, trying to reference back to the brawl just now without actually having to say so out loud, "you could calm her down so quickly and easily. How did you do that?"

For the first time, she saw something almost like unease flit over the normally collected Hunter's face. "Ring and I…" he echoed, his steps slowing down until he finally came to a stop. She didn't notice he had stopped and continued walking on a few steps further before realising the green haired man was no longer behind her. She turned – he was standing there, right in the middle of the corridor, one hand gripping his elbow, his eyes staring intently down at the ground. Slowly, she made her way back to the man, not knowing whether it would be a good idea to call out to him – she had never seen him like this before. He looked almost dazed, like the mention of a possible relationship between him and Ring was something he could never envision or possibly fathom.

"Yes, you and Ring – I know you have something on, there's no other reason why Lui asked me to call _you _down to calm her and not any of the other Council members. So what is that reason?" she forced herself to ask when he seemed unlikely to continue his sentence. At the sound of her voice, he looked back up – his green eyes were narrowed slightly, filled with some emotion she couldn't identify. It looked almost like fear – but the thought of Gumo Nakajima ever being frightened of anything was laughable to her. This was the man who willingly chose to hunt werewolves, a species rarer and much, much more vicious than the vampires were. How could a lycanthrope hunter know any fear when most people feared death, and he stared right at Death every single day?

But then she suddenly thought back to what he just told her about fear and wondered if perhaps, the green haired Hunter was not as invulnerable and fearless as he was made out to be. "We don't exactly have what you would call a relationship," Gumo said shortly. "Could we leave that matter alone? You're supposed to focus on your task right now."

"If you don't tell me anything then I _won't _be able to focus!" she protested, finally losing her patience with the lack of concrete explanations in this organisation. Gumo blinked, looking a little startled by the fact that she was retorting at all, and parted his lips in what appeared to be an attempt to respond, but she barrelled on, preventing him from saying anything. "No one tells me anything around here. You know something, Gumo? There's one thing worse than fear. And that's curiosity – can you imagine it, the burning gnaw of curiosity, making you literally _itch _to know so badly. You want to know all the forbidden things; it makes you helpless, its slave, and even when you're satiated about one thing it opens up millions of other doors, and newfound desire to know. If I don't get any answers, this is going to be all I think about, and I won't be able to concentrate on whatever the President wants me to do," she said passionately, folding her arms.

Gumo was still staring at her like she had grown another head and the longer this dragged on, the more the adrenaline rush that came with speaking out faded, and she was left feeling nervous and fidgety. She wanted to unfold her arms from across her chest but she didn't know what else to do with her arms if she did that. She was suddenly painfully conscious of herself and what she was doing. Was it that rare that anyone spoke out against the head Hunters or something? He looked absolutely shocked and she didn't think she had really done anything that really deserved such a reaction.

Finally, he coughed, shaking his head. "Well, you're a stubborn one, aren't you? Like your father and your brother," the man observed, sending a little twinge of memory through her when he drew a comparison between her and Mikuo. "And I see that you really won't stop asking for answers to your questions, even if they don't have any concern at all with you. But no matter," he shrugged. "I'm rather of the opinion, Miku, that answers should be _earned _instead of just given to you on a platter like this. The curiosity that you so described would be much, much better satisfied if you were to seek and find your own answers, rather than asking for them from others," a little smirk curved his lips. "Just a little word of advice for the future; I'm sure you'll need it someday."

This man was absolutely _frustrating_, with his longwinded answers that weren't even answers at all. "So you're telling me to go and find out the answer?" she demanded. "Fine, stay here – I'll go back and ask Ring." _And risk making her angry and getting my face clawed with those really dangerous-looking fingernails…or maybe just risk having her pluck my eyebrows for another hour. _She honestly had no idea which option was worse.

Before she could spin around and walk away from him, his hand shot out, grabbing her arm tightly. She almost winced. "Hey, don't do that," he said sharply. "She's resting now, don't be so selfish and bother her. Just now drained a lot of her energy and she needs to recover before she can properly deal with other people." His faintly chiding tone made her feel rather guilty, but she tried to suppress that guilt – she hadn't known that Ring needed to recover after _that_, since she figured that maybe it was a natural thing to them to change like that for both Lui and Ring and so they would be fine after nursing their injuries or whatever… "They don't have the same quick healing powers that the full-blooded sorcerers have," Gumo added, correctly interpreting the look on her face.

"Fine, fine…who am I supposed to find out from, though?" she grumbled. "No, don't tell me to go and meet the President first," she cut across him as he started opening his mouth. "I'll get fidgety. Where's the library around here? I bet there's something in there that talks about sorcerers and stuff…" she made to move off but his hand, which was still tightly holding on to her arm, yanked her back, again preventing her from taking another step away from him. She growled softly in her impatience and whipped around to face him, wanting to demand that he let her go, but the words died in her throat – he was entirely too near her now, his green eyes – they were just a shade lighter than hers – seeming to pierce right into her very soul. He had very intense eyes. Suddenly, she couldn't breathe.

"You are really incredibly persistent," he murmured. His other hand touched her chin lightly, tilting her head this way and that, like he was studying her. She couldn't bring herself to say anything in response – he was too near, and she couldn't concentrate with him being so near her. Gumo was, after all, undeniably attractive, even if he appeared to be attached to Ring and was four years older than her. _Four years isn't even that much anyway, _her mind whispered. She resisted the urge to scowl – she was not supposed to be thinking that way about him. "I like persistence," he grinned, then he let go of her.

She blinked, staring in absolute shock at the Hunter, who acted like completely nothing had just happened. "Well, since you want your answers so badly, then I'll give them to you. Sorcerers, both male and female, have…well, some kind of _other half _who is a part of them completely. It could be anyone – human, vampire, lycanthrope…anyone except a zombie, since the zombies are basically corpses reanimated by dark magic. This other half, soulmate if you would, is capable of soothing them when they…change. What you saw earlier was the…darker side of the sorcerers. Sorcerers were descended from the harpies, you know, those half-bird half-woman creatures which can only eat if they earn or steal the food? When they lose their temper the harpy comes out. It's fierce, it's deadly and strangely mesmerising for all the wrong reasons. But every harpy has a soulmate, and that was the one thing other than their form that was passed on to the sorcerers."

"So is Ring your soulmate?" she asked, wide-eyed. She never knew the sorcerers were part of such an admittedly monstrous legacy – no one knew if harpies still existed in the mortal world or if they had all returned to their own dimension, but in the past when they roamed the earth, the stories about them were horrible. The harpies all took the form of beautiful, seductive women, but when enraged they turned into hideous birdlike monsters, complete with feathered wings and eagle-like talons. They were beings with astounding magical prowess and demonic strength, having been fathered by Lucifer when he first fell from Heaven and explored the mortal world. It was strange to look at their descendants and know they were considered weaker beings in their world.

"No," his short and simple answer shocked her completely, and she blinked at him, utterly dumbfounded. He shook his head slowly, sighing. "Her soulmate was my older brother. I look exactly like him," he laughed, a faint tinge of bitterness lacing his words. "His name was Gumiya Nakajima, two years older than Gumi and I. He and Ring met five years ago…he was nineteen, Ring was only fifteen. But it was pretty much love at first sight. That's how their whole soulmate thing works – the witch or sorcerer looks at the other person and instantly _knows _they were meant to complete him or her. She took one look at Gumiya and fell instantly, and he loved her too. They were sappy and mushy all the time, so much it actually got on my nerves," a pained smile flitted across his face.

"Then where is Gumiya now?" she asked, curious. She had never known that Gumi and Gumo had an elder brother. But then she didn't know very much about the Council and their members anyway. Among the Hunters, people tended to work alone, unless they were needed for a big job and had to team up together to take the predators down. If not, each department kept to itself – Miku wasn't even sure exactly where the werewolf department was based. It wasn't in the headquarters; that was all she remembered.

"Dead," again, another short answer that took her aback. "He died last year. He was one of those people who were killed in the Russian catastrophe. Twenty dead, fifteen were Hunters, five were supernatural," he shook his head. "You know, the day before he left for Russia, he was talking to Gumi and me – he always had a knack for premonition, he said he might not come back this time. We brushed it off, you know. Gumi and I. We thought he was being paranoid, and I even said that if he were to die, he'd better leave me his video games and consoles. I wish that I could take that back now," his voice was steady and even but she had never seen such a broken look in someone's eyes before.

She didn't know what to say in response to that, and a few minutes of silence passed by them before he finally spoke up again. "But that's not the important part. You want your question answered, don't you?" his green eyes slanted to meet hers. Before she could nod or shake her head – she had no idea which action would be more appropriate at this instance – he continued. "Ring was absolutely devastated at his loss. You only have one soulmate, after all. He left her broken and incomplete. I started spending time with her because out of her, me and Gumi, I was the one handling it the best. I guess it helped that I look so much like Gumiya…she got better after some time. Normally, she's fine around me; we treat each other as business acquaintances and friends. But when she's in one of her…episodes, she tends to mistake me for Gumiya. That's why I can calm her down so easily. When she's shaken that way, she thinks I'm my elder brother."

_Oh. I see. _But she couldn't voice the words. Gumo let out another heavy sigh. "But that's all in the past, I guess. I won't act like I'm strong and pretend that I'm over the grief because Gumiya and Gumi were all I had. We were abandoned together and adopted together, we were housed in the same orphanage and that fosters some pretty strong bonds," he mused, more to himself than to her. _Wait, he's adopted? _"But he wouldn't want me to be a sap. I mean, I'm the Head of the Lycanthrope department. He gave the position to me. It was supposed to be him, you know. He had faith in me, and I won't let him down."

Gumo wasn't even looking at her now; it seemed more like he was looking through her. "You're kind of like him, you know, in a way. What with your natures, that similar desire to _know _things you shouldn't have to know. But then that's exactly what made Gumiya so attractive to other people, the determination that came with trying to find out the truth. I think that's what makes most people attractive, curiosity I mean. Look at your father and how charismatic he is, and Mikuo Hatsune…he was well-liked here too. He was my junior, I was pretty fond of that kid," he smiled crookedly. "You understand my loss, don't you? The loss of an elder brother…it hurts, doesn't it?" he now asked her directly, his green eyes staring directly at her now, his earlier sharp focus returning.

Slowly, she nodded. Mikuo died years before Gumiya; she was, at the very least, used to the hollow ache that was once occupied by her brother. She could imagine how it felt like for Gumo and Gumi, and suddenly her perspective on the green haired twins shifted a little. She always thought that Gumo and Gumi stuck together and didn't talk much to others because of some exclusive twin thing, but now…she was starting to wonder if it was something else. "Do…a lot of people know about this?" she asked, voice quiet.

"Some people, that's all. Mostly those who lost others in the catastrophe too…in these kinds of disasters other people try to stay out of it as much as possible. Only those who are directly affected by the deaths have even an inkling of what really happened there. It's not something I want to talk about," he added in a soft mutter, reaching up to push his green hair out of his eyes. His eyes had darkened, and she knew that it wouldn't be a good idea to continue pushing for answers, so she kept her silence. He glanced back at her and smiled, a slightly more genuine smile this time. "Shall we go see the President?"

"Not like we have anything else to do, do we?" she replied, setting off again. She heard a low chuckle and then he was following her, his footsteps silent while hers were loud against the smooth floor. He didn't have to tell her anything for her to understand the silent, unspoken message that had passed between them – the look that they exchanged just before she turned around and walked in the direction they were originally going in.

_Whatever I told you just now will stay between us; don't you dare tell another soul._

* * *

><p><em>This building is absolutely disgusting. It pains my eyes to look at it.<em> Len stared at the tall, so-called modern design of the building which housed the Hunters' headquarters. _I'm fairly sure that a kid with a crayon could come up with an aesthetically more appealing building. _Supernaturals had a preference for older, more historical looking buildings.

No, what Len truly had a preference for was ice and snow, but that wouldn't work in this town. Any building made out of ice would melt. He thought longingly back to his home. It wasn't made of ice, but it had some wonderful Gothic architecture, something which he could truly appreciate. It was grand and majestic, unlike this huge metal monstrosity humans claimed to be cutting-edge design. _The only thing this building is cutting is my artistic appreciation – my liking for this piece of design is being ripped to absolute shreds._

He turned his attention away from the building itself to _how _he could get inside it. Of course, it would be impossible to get in as a vampire; the Hunters would smell him out in ten seconds and then would probably try to stab him in the heart with silver daggers. He wouldn't die, but it would _hurt _and honestly, that was something he was trying to avoid. He wasn't someone who would undergo pain and suffering if it wasn't necessary, and it certainly wasn't necessary now. But how else could he infiltrate the place? For some reason there didn't seem to be any people in the vicinity, which annoyed him.

He could always call Yuki back to him again but that would take time, since she would have to travel all the way here, and she'd probably have to come up with an excuse to her family so she could leave the house as well. Len didn't have the patience to wait for so long. Every second counted when it came to Miku; no, he needed a better alternative. He had thought of mesmerising a Hunter, but only if said Hunter was _outside _the damn building. Len wasn't about to waltz into the stronghold of the enemy and attack them.

"Oh, Len, how nice to see you!" a familiar voice suddenly rang out from behind him, the sound of silver bells and wind-chimes. He jumped, whirling around to face the person – there stood Luka Megurine, queen of the fey, staring inquisitively back at him. "You do know that you're standing outside the Hunters' headquarters and if you're not careful, they're going to see you, don't you?" she questioned him. He scowled at her – obviously he knew that, did she think he was stupid? "Why are you here anyway?" she continued.

"I…I'm just looking for someone," he said lamely. "I have something to, uh, settle with them. It's nothing important," he said hastily. "It's just, uh…I feel a little antsy about the whole thing so I wanted to find them personally and get the whole, uh, issue over and done with but I have no idea how to get in without being found out," he said in a rush, hating the way he stuttered and stumbled over his words. Luka had probably already guessed he was lying. The faery queen continued looking serenely at him, the knowing look in her eyes indicating that yes, she did know he wasn't telling the truth, but she couldn't be bothered to probe more and find out what said truth was. He sighed in relief.

"Who is this, Luka?" another voice issued – his gaze shifted to the left of Luka, where there were some bushes shaking. After a few seconds, hands parted the shrubs and a tall, silver haired woman came out of the greenery, her vivid crimson eyes alighting curiously upon him. Len narrowed his eyes at her – this woman was mortal, she was a human through and through. How did she know Luka, and why did it seem like they were on such cordial terms, enough that she could refer to the queen by her first name?

"Just a boy…a troublesome young boy, but he will grow out of it," Luka replied, ignoring the way Len spluttered at being called troublesome. "Nothing to worry about, my dear – you should be getting back in there, I'm certain your President is missing you," Luka prompted gently. The woman sighed, closing her eyes, and Luka laughed softly. "You have spent enough time with me and the rest of us for today. We will have you back with us another day, my dear – you know that you are welcome any time at my court."

"It always feels too short, seeing you all – I never get to spend enough time at home," the silver haired woman murmured. Len arched an eyebrow – now he was getting curious about who she was and _why _Luka seemed to be so affectionate with regards to her. He couldn't tell exactly how old the woman was; she had the same kind of agelessness that seemed to surround the faery queen, but if he had to hazard a guess then he would say that she was maybe in her mid-twenties? "The Council had a meeting today; I missed it, I'm sure Rui would be unhappy," she laughed, the same kind of tinkling laugh that Luka had. "But it was something to do with briefing a girl about the party, nothing serious."

"Girl…?" Len spoke up, interjecting at this point. "And party? Are you talking about the birthday celebration for Yuma? Who's the girl?" he asked, words tumbling out of his mouth. Both of the women turned back to stare at him. The more he looked at the silver haired lady, the more she reminded him of Luka herself – there were eerie similarities between the two, like their height and their serenity and the _peace _that just seemed to surround them. Both of them gave off the vibe that they knew so much more than he ever would. He would have thought her a faery if she didn't smell just like a human.

"Of what concern is it to you?" Luka asked, sounding mildly curious now. He wasn't sure whether or not he ought to reveal the truth – he had not wanted any of the other royals to know about Miku, and he certainly didn't want this human, who appeared to be part of the Hunters and the Council itself, to be aware that he was Len Kagamine, the 'dead' vampire prince. None of this was going to plan. Luka Megurine was not supposed to have turned up right behind him, a human coming along with her. Why did nothing ever go to plan? _Not that you had much of a plan to begin with, _his mind whispered snarkily.

He finally decided to tell Luka, but _only _Luka. "I can tell you, but she…" he said delicately, glancing at the human woman. Luka looked at her as well, and a small smile curved her lips. She shook her head, exchanging a look with the woman. Len somehow felt that there was a very big bit of information he was not privy to, and that they were laughing at him for not knowing…in fact, that was most probably exactly what was happening.

"You can say whatever you want in front of Haku. She won't let anything slip to the Council if you do not want it to be known – unless you are planning mass destruction, in which case she would be duty-bound to do so," Luka said dryly. Len wanted to question why the fey queen had so much trust in this particular mortal Council member, but the look on Luka's face made him decide that it would be better if he tell them why he was lurking outside here first, before he went on to question why she had so much trust in her. He had never seen anything even close to impatience on Luka's face before, other than now. He definitely did not want to see the faery queen becoming impatient.

"Well…if that girl happens to be, you know, the girl I'm…interested in…look, I have my suspicions about what she's doing and I believe she's the one being briefed about the party. I heard this year the Hunters accepted the invitation. And if she's the one going, I need to know exactly who I have to keep her away from," he scowled. He had not expected that Miku might be the one attending, but after hearing what the silver haired woman had mentioned to Luka, he realised that she might be there. And he bet that she would be there for something more than just a fun time that night – Miku was not very sociable and would only bother to endure parties and such events for a good reason.

Plus Len didn't want her to go anywhere near the others. The other vampires would probably try to get her to be their personal blood vessels – she smelled particularly sweet to him but he knew her scent was distinctive to others of his kind as well – and she was pretty enough to catch the attention of Yuma, who was known to be selective about the girls he spent time with. He did not want the werewolf prince getting close to Miku. No, actually he didn't want _anyone _to get close to Miku. She was _his _bride and he would be damned if he allowed anyone else to lay even a single finger on his bride.

"Miku Hatsune?" the silver haired woman blinked, looking startled – he almost let out a groan. So Miku really was the one being sent to attend…_that's wonderful_, he thought sarcastically to himself. "Why are you interested in her, vampire? You know she's a vampire Hunter, don't you – she would probably stab you before she goes anywhere near you at all. I didn't think she would know any of your kind well enough for you to take…an interest in her, as you put it," the woman continued, sounding amused.

"She…well…long story," he muttered mutinously. "Anyway, I know where she is and what she's going to do, so I no longer have to enter that damn building. I just wanted to know what she was up to because she wasn't in school today, that's all – if she isn't in trouble with the Council or anything like that then I'm relieved. And now _you _should answer my questions – how are you two related? I thought the faeries rarely wanted to have anything to do with humans," he directed his questions at Luka. The faery queen let out a soft, tinkling laugh, and she exchanged yet another look with the woman named Haku. Honestly, their secret knowing smiles were starting to annoy him greatly.

"Haku Yowane is my name," the silver haired woman spoke instead of Luka, introducing herself graciously. "I'm part of the Council, as the fey diplomat. I'm welcome at the fey court at any time because Luka is my foster mother…" she laughed at the look of utter shock on his face. "Oh, sounds like a child's dream, doesn't it, to be raised by faeries?"


	8. Chapter 8

_Come with us…_outstretched fingertips, faceless smiles, beckoning and doing their best to tempt him. That was how Len remembered his only encounter with the wild faeries.

There were two different types of fey. There were the more civilised faeries, those who formed courts and maintained law and order, the different courts being governed by their peace-loving queen, Luka Megurine. And then there were the uncontrollable, untameable spirits of nature which listened to no one but themselves and Mother Nature. They were the savages, those who had no set of principles or any conscience.

As he looked back into the crimson eyes of the woman now staring at him, he couldn't help but be reminded of that eerie, mesmerizingly beautiful encounter with the wild – with the true, primal people of nature. They were alluring because they were incredibly mysterious and were everything order and civilisation didn't understand. But then Luka had warned the rest before – that the wild fey had no sense of _right _and _wrong, _because principles were something defined by society and society was not something they were a part of. The wild fey wanted playthings. They wanted something to taunt and tease, and their idea of fun was…twisted, to say the least. It wasn't something that any of the other supernaturals would want to endure, and so Len broke away from their draw. But that wasn't something he had been able to do easily. He still recalled what it was like to this day, to almost fall into their trap and allow himself to be led away into the wild.

"Come with me," she said again, holding out a hand towards him – almost instinctively, he withdrew, her words and her actions reminding him way too much of his close encounter with torture and beautiful danger. Luka tilted her head, studying him – she must have guessed what he was thinking because she stepped forward and placed a hand on Haku's shoulder, whispering something into her ear. Those red eyes slanted towards the faery queen and then the silver haired woman backed away, watching him ever so curiously. He hated that, hated the feeling of being watched by someone like her.

"She knows of a way to get into the headquarters without being spotted by the others, just so you know," Luka said lightly, noticing the suspicion that continued flitting about on Len's face. He did not have pleasant memories of the wild fey; she knew that Haku was most likely triggering those memories with how she put her words. _Come with me…_a familiar, trademark catchphrase of the wild fey which used their guile to entice people into following them into the woods. "Though I don't know if she should offer you that even out of the goodness of her heart, seeing how you did say you already found out what you had to know…" she waited, wondering if that would trigger a response.

At once, the blond haired vampire raised his head, icy eyes sparking with curiosity. "You know of a way in, you say?" he asked, wariness still evident in his eyes but tempered by an obvious desire to know more. "And the Hunters won't have any idea that I'm in the building?" Haku nodded – she was part of the Council, naturally she would know all the secret passageways leading in and out of the headquarters. She did not know what kind of relationship he had with Hatsune, but she knew she did not misjudge the desperate yearning she saw in his eyes the moment he mentioned who he was searching for.

"I have no reason to lie to you," she said calmly. He still looked suspicious, and rightfully so. "All I want is to know why you're so focused on finding Miku Hatsune. Don't tell me that you are not – I see the truth in your gaze, vampire," she held up a hand when he tried to protest. "She is a part of the Hunters and as a member of the Council, I have every right to wish to know what you want to do with one of my members. That is what you have to give me in exchange for having what you desire. But that's how the world works, isn't it? A little give and take – that's how everyone works, don't you agree…?"

Len didn't know whether or not he should agree with her but those red eyes were so piercing, boring a hole right through him. He never had seen another human who was so incredibly…_faery _like. But she didn't remind him of Luka and her court. She reminded him of the primal and savage wild fey – she reminded him of everything that was the exact opposite of what the civilised fey were like. Untamed and untameable, so attuned to nature that just being in their presence was to feel the _world, _to be so overwhelmed by that aura of olden magic that it was almost impossible to resist their whispers.

_Do I really need to enter the building? _He knew it wasn't absolutely necessary. He could always take their word for it and trust that Miku was safe – there was no need for them to lie about this, was there, when prior to their conversation they didn't even have any idea that he even knew the vampire hunter? But there was an overwhelming urge within him to barge in and see it for himself – there was nothing more reassuring than first-hand confirmation, which was something he still lacked as of this moment.

He wouldn't rest easy until he knew for certain, deep down, that was what he knew – and judging from the knowing glint in Haku Yowane's crimson eyes, that was what she was aware of as well. "I understand the woes and pains of young love," she spoke again, jolting him out of his thoughts. "At least, I am assuming that love is what you feel for young Miku Hatsune; I don't think the expression of longing on your face, which you think you are hiding so well, befits any emotion that would bring her ill. But it makes us curious, both Luka and I – how is it that a vampire would fall in love with a human Huntress, especially when he is…clearly quite powerful?" her voice lilted. Her gaze raked him up and down, analysing him thoroughly. It unnerved him.

Finally, he let out a sigh – he had to get in, his worry would keep gnawing away at him otherwise. "Look, if I tell you and Luka then the both of you must swear it to absolute secrecy. That is how important this whole matter is to me and I refuse to settle for anything less than a complete, binding vow. Do you understand me?" he lowered his voice, gaze flicking between the two older women. They exchanged a look, seeming to speak with nothing but their eyes alone, but then both turned back to look at him and gave him a slow, serious nod. He frowned. "I want nothing less than a faery's vow; I know what are the consequences if a faery ever breaks her promise," he said warningly.

Luka smiled, that same serene smile, looking as unruffled as ever. "Then you have my word if that is what you seek," she said easily. "I speak on behalf of Haku, since she is a human and her words alone have no power – we are bound to secrecy as you so wish. If we break our silence, may the great goddess Nemain strike us down where we stand." As she spoke, a cold wind picked up, whipping around them and tossing their long hair about, the bright pink and moonlight silver mingling and blending together. Len couldn't help but shudder – he was used to freezing temperatures, but there was something about this wind that didn't just freeze, it _bit _under the skin and poisoned from within. "Is that good enough for you?" Luka asked, her serene smile never once leaving her face.

He nodded stiffly, and the wind died down. He shook his hair out of his eyes, reaching up to massage his temples lightly – this was all starting to seem like a bad idea, but he couldn't possibly back out now. "Well…Miku and I have known each other for…a few years," he started hesitantly, not wanting to reveal _too _much of his past with her. "It all changed five years back, of course. You already know what happened and it's not really relevant, so let's just skip that part," he directed this at Luka, who just nodded in reply. "I met her again at school, when I came here with SeeU. I tried to avoid her," his words sounded miserable, and he tried to keep that angst away when he continued speaking. "It was working perfectly fine till one night she was ambushed and…well, bitten."

Haku gasped, and both of them turned to face her – the woman looked troubled, one hand halfway up to her mouth. "Bitten…doesn't that mean she's been converted?" she asked weakly, almost disbelievingly. Len shook his head furiously – he knew the Council member would have jumped to conclusions. Luka placed a reassuring hand on the woman's shoulder, and Haku looked back at the faery she called her foster mother. Again, there was something, just _something_, which passed between the women, and Haku let her hand drop back to her side, her shoulders relaxing slightly. "You may continue then."

Len raked his fingers through his hair, troubled. This was the most difficult part, telling them what he had done – because it broke so many taboos, not only in his world but in the Hunters' world as well. "By right, she should have been changed. But I saw and I…I, well, I…" the words refused to come out. He glanced at Luka, whose eyes had widened abruptly in sudden understanding, but Haku still looked as disbelieving and clueless as ever. He pressed his lips together – _might as well get this over and done with. You said you would tell them; this will have to come to pass, to hell with all the consequences which may arise as a result of what you did. _"I fed her my blood," he said, voice steadying.

Haku swayed slightly on her feet, and Luka instantly grasped on to her shoulder, faint concern flitting over her features. It was the first time Len had seen the queen look anything other than serene. "So you turned her into a hybrid?" Haku asked, her voice soft, but underneath the shock which muted her words so, there was a tiniest hint of hostility. He could hear the ring of venom in her voice, something which he had not heard before this point. "You turned a vampire hunter into something neither human nor vampire. I'm starting to wonder if you actually hate her, despite what I thought."

"You jump to conclusions too quickly for someone who almost fainted just because of five words," he snapped in retort, and she stilled, her red eyes narrowing at him. "Your adopted daughter doesn't seem to have any of your ability to accept the unexpected," he turned towards Luka, the words still spilling out with defensive intensity. "If I hadn't let her drink my blood, she would have _died. _And I don't give a damn about the principles of the Hunters – I will not stand by and watch her die when I can save her from that. There isn't even a guarantee she will convert. It isn't…a fully researched topic…we don't know how it will affect her body. But at the very least, she's not dead," he hissed venomously.

"I'm not saying that what you did is wrong, Len," Luka said calmly, completely opposite of the agitation both him and Haku were displaying. "Though certainly, you should have factored in how she would react, given that she hunts your kind as part of her duties. But it certainly is more important to keep her alive than care about whatever rules her organisation has…at least, in _my _opinion. All life is precious," she pursed her lips. "Do you really think she won't convert, though? You are, after all, a First House vampire."

He gaped at the queen, his gaze flicking over to the mortal woman – he hadn't wanted her to reveal anything about his ranking, since the First House prince was supposed to be _dead _and he certainly didn't want any of the Hunters to know that this was not the case. But Luka had just casually revealed that he was part of the First House – it was common knowledge among the Hunters that there was no First House _son_, and this was bound to arouse the woman's suspicions. Haku, however, looked unsurprised by the revelation, and Len continued looking between the two women, utterly confused.

"I already know your identity, Len Kagamine. It might have slipped your attention that I knew exactly what you meant when you said you fed her your blood," the woman said dryly, answering the unspoken question in the air. "Oh, Luka didn't tell me. She just has this terrible habit of leaving the doors to her bedchambers ajar, and I happened to be passing by her door when she was speaking to her personal aide about coming to the mansion of the vampire First House prince – but don't worry, she swore me to secrecy the same way you did," well, that relieved him a little. "I will not question how you are alive when everyone thinks you're dead. Magic works in strange and mysterious ways."

Len twitched. "Well. Since you already know," he started, then hesitated, still uncertain and unsure – for he was in new territory here, and that made him wary. He wasn't sure what he could reveal and what he could not – for all he knew, there would be some way for Haku to slip out of the vow Luka just made. How would he know? He was not a faery, and he most certainly wasn't a human adopted by them. She was a strange case. He had never heard of Luka tolerating a human being long enough to actually adopt her before. The fey were particularly intolerant of humans, given that they resided in places that were deeply in touch with nature, and people were destroying those said places.

"Since you already know…?" Haku prompted. The woman was peering carefully at him, her crimson eyes making him think of a supernatural rather than a human. Red eyes…it might be surprising to humans, but not all supernatural beings had red eyes. In fact, only a very, very minor proportion had eyes that weren't even the normal blue, brown, green…and red was definitely a rare colour. Even the vampires didn't have red eyes. Well, most of them didn't, anyway. The unnatural colour of her eyes just made him forget, sometimes, that he wasn't speaking to another faery – that she was just a human, and if she ever did anything to displease him, he could always easily get his revenge…

"I'll have you know that because I fed her my blood, she is _mine. _She is not to be harmed – she will not be sent on foolish, reckless missions by the Hunters because if any hurt befalls her at all, then I will go after that cause of hurt with every bit of vengeance I own in my soul. And believe me when I say that the end result will not be pretty," he hissed, the added vehemence making his words sound more serpentine than human. Luka started, clearly unused to seeing him so forceful – after all, Len was known to be a more laidback aristocrat than the rest, due to the years he spent as a human, unaware of his royal heritage. Before the faery queen could touch him, though, Len backed away out of their reach. He didn't want to be anywhere near the two of them at the moment.

But Haku looked unruffled, possibly because she didn't know that Len wasn't displaying signs of his usual behaviour. Perhaps she thought that all vampires were aggressive. "Is it because she is being sent to attend the party? She volunteered to go, you know – none of us intended for her to go, not when she was so grievously injured. But she insisted. As stubborn as her father and the rest of her family, she is – how could any of us say no to her when we know that she would just find a way to sneak in anyway?" the silver haired woman asked, shrugging gracefully. _She has a remarkably good grasp of Miku's character – I wonder if they met before…but then Miku wouldn't have had interacted with her, no?_

"It's not about that," he snapped before he could stop himself. "At the party, I can keep an eye on her. I just…I have a bad feeling," he admitted, giving voice to the feeling of malignance that had been lingering in him ever since the coming of Hecate's Moon. "I know something bad is going to happen soon. To her, to me, to all of us – I don't know, and I don't _care _about the rest. I just want her to be safe. And if by taking precautions, if by telling a member of the Council what I want, will help keep her safe, then that's what I will do. I won't allow her to get hurt by _anything_. I don't want to lose her again after I've finally found her," he said stubbornly, "even if it means destroying _all _of you."

The last sentence was spoken in a faintly threatening tone, words he almost couldn't control in the perpetual state of fear he lived in. He never feared for himself. But ever since that night he found her bleeding to death, the night he saved and destroyed her, he lived in fear – fear that one day something else might happen and that he would not be there to save her this time. And if she were to leave him, he wouldn't know what to do. Miku was so human and fragile, her life just a bright spark compared to the long, slow flame of his own. He would live on after her human life ended. He would live even after her great-grandchild died. He would live for what seemed like forever, in her eyes. But she would leave him in the blink of an eye, unless she changed and became like him…

He didn't expect Haku to take his words well, but to his utter surprise, the woman nodded her head gracefully, closing her eyes. "I will see what I can do about that, Len Kagamine, but I cannot make any promises. As you should be aware, the Council is made up of more than one person – my word alone will not be sufficient to override the decisions that the rest of them make, especially not when the President is involved. But I will do my best. I know what it feels like to lose a loved one – I would not want you to feel the same way I did," at this, Haku looked up, meeting Luka's eyes. Again, something unspoken passed between the two women, and Haku's crimson eyes softened slightly. "I wouldn't wish that even upon my worst enemy," she echoed, voice barely a whisper.

He didn't know how to respond to her words, almost felt like he was intruding upon a sacred moment between the two women – loss was common in their gazes, that feeling of loss and raw pain he could see but had yet to experience himself. Something had happened with the two of them; he was certain of that – perhaps it was that loss Haku had just mentioned. But then he didn't want to probe into something that wasn't any of his business. Neither of them would tell him anyway, he was already aware of that.

Haku suddenly snapped fully back into attention. "Now, we wanted to get you into the building so you can see your Miku, isn't it?" she asked briskly, her voice crisp and professional, holding none of the ethereal quality it had while she was speaking earlier. He almost couldn't recognise the voice to be hers; it was so different from what he had heard. "Then we can help you get in, since you fulfilled your part of the bargain and let us know your reasons. However, be aware that once we get you inside, you will be alone. I can't help you with her whereabouts, she could be anywhere. Try not to kill anyone while you're inside, sudden deaths are difficult to explain away," she said, so matter-of-factly that all he could do was gape at her. _Is this her Council personality?_

Luka made a sound that he would have classified as a giggle if it was not coming from Luka. Luka was the faery queen; she never, ever did anything as girly as giggling. "Oh, you're shocking him, my dear. Perhaps we should save the business tone for another time," the pink haired faery covered her mouth daintily with her hand as she laughed. Haku let out a good-natured sigh and shook her head, stepping away from them. She walked forward towards the building, and as she walked, she turned back, gesturing at him to follow her towards the headquarters. Len hesitated, doubts filling his mind.

He turned back and saw that Luka had already disappeared, leaving him with no one else to ask for advice or guidance. He looked in front again; Haku was already almost at the building itself. She looked at him again, those red eyes unreadable from where he was standing. She raised her hand once more, beckoning to him again to follow her.

So he took a deep breath and decided to follow her into the unknown.

* * *

><p>Gumo raised his hand to knock on the door, but she saw that before his knuckles could make contact with the wooden surface, he hesitated – he clenched his fingers together, and his hand withdrew from the door. It was a very slight withdrawal, just the tiniest fraction of a millimetre – if she hadn't been watching him so closely, she would never have seen that tiny little movement backwards. But she saw it, and it startled her.<p>

"I'm starting to wonder if this is actually a good idea," Gumo gave voice to what was on his mind, probably noticing the inquisitive look on her face. "Sending you to attend the party, I mean. I don't mean your physical state right now – I know you have every idea how to take care of yourself and your injuries. Oh, I'm really not doubting your ability as a Hunter," he must have noticed how the curiosity on her face had slowly morphed into irritation. "But I…have my concerns. Your curiosity is one concern, of course. You're a stubborn little girl who wants to know too much for her own good…there's no telling how much you will probe that night, and that is rather suspicious, honestly."

"Then what are you suggesting?" Miku demanded, immediately taking offence at what he was implying – that her curiosity was a problem that would weaken her ability to carry out her duties later. "That we get someone else to replace me? But there isn't anyone who is capable of blending in with the aristocrats as well as I can – I'm the youngest Hunter in this town, and you all know it," she said stubbornly. Gumo didn't appear to react at all, but she knew he was listening to her. "If you send anyone older, they'll know that they're here for a reason once the Hunter starts asking any questions, and then they'll be on their guard. But I'm young and with youth comes curiosity. They won't think anything strange of an eighteen-year-old asking questions, you know."

"I know that," he chuckled softly, to her surprise – surprise because she thought he would have objected to her argument. "I know that you're a logical choice, Miku – but I can't shake off the feeling that the night of Yuma's party, something bad is going to happen. Maybe Gumiya gave me his powers of premonition after his death…" for a moment, his face fell, but the green haired man recovered quickly before she had to awkwardly force herself to comfort him. "Well, you'll be allowed to bring in your mobile. The supernaturals agreed to that after some negotiations – oh, don't look so shocked. The party is attended by the royals of their world, and those royals are not exactly what one would call…modern. At least, most of them have never used a mobile before."

"Well, most of them are over two hundred years old," Miku muttered under her breath. The answering quirk of Gumo's lips was all she needed to know that the man was still paying attention to her. He had this remarkable ability to look completely disinterested yet still catch and remember every single word you were saying – it was something she had realised while they continued conversing down the hallway, on the way to the President's office. Miku made a note to never say the wrong thing in front of him.

"You're certainly a feisty one, aren't you?" he asked humorously, the darkness that had crossed his face at the mention of his older brother lifting at once, leaving him looking remarkably carefree – it was not something she was used to, she was by far more used to seeing Gumo with his trademark thinking scowl on his face. That scowl made him look hot, she admitted that to herself, but the little smile on his face now made him look attractive in a way that was both _cute _yet not. He couldn't be cute, he was too tall and too darkly handsome, but something in his smile spoke of boyish happiness, a feeling that she would never have expected from someone as senior ranked as Gumo.

Before she had to hastily think up of a reply to his observation, Gumo knocked on the door, rapping smartly three times on the hard surface. There was a moment's silence and then an answering 'Come in!" resounded from inside. Sudden panic seized her heart, and she looked wildly up at Gumo again – he flashed her, again, that charming, almost boyish smile and reached out, ruffling her hair. He twisted the doorknob, letting the door swing open to reveal the office beyond. Mouthing the words 'Good luck' to her, the green haired lycanthrope Hunter turned and simply walked away, leaving her there.

She was frozen for a moment, unsure about what to do outside the office. Should she enter? She could always just turn tail and run away; it wasn't too late to do that. The President was tiny but despite her diminutive stature, the woman had a presence that was all too strong, too _intimidating. _Miku almost couldn't breathe when that golden gaze pierced through her, condemning her for all her past mistakes, be they serious or not. The woman was someone who had been through numerous trials; that was what she was sure of even without being told. No sheltered person could have such a hard look.

_But running away is the path of a coward. And a coward is the one thing I will never allow myself to become. _Deciding upon that, she pushed the door open wider, stepping inside the room and closing the door gently behind her. She glanced around the office – it seemed like any other office space, neat and tidy with a few books on dark mahogany bookshelves and two potted plants placed on either side of the room. The President was sitting at her office table, typing away busily on her laptop, and Miku waited for her to finish before trying to attract her attention. She didn't want to risk annoying her.

She could not forget that this same petite woman was the one who could decide her future in this organisation. Finally, the petite dark woman looked up from her laptop, closing it decisively. "Oh, Miku – this is good, you're finally here. The two of us, you and I, we need to talk," she got straight into business, using her fingers to form a steeple and supporting her chin with that steeple. Miku resisted the urge to swallow – talk? _Talk about what, I wonder? _'_We need to talk'_ had never been a phrase she associated with good things. '_We need to talk'_ never ended in joy for anyone, be it speaker or listener.

"What is it?" she asked, dipping her head just a little in respect for the older woman's authority. The President didn't speak for a while, and Miku raised her head slightly – she was staring straight at Miku, her golden eyes narrowed slightly in a manner which reminded her of a predator on the hunt. "Is it about the party? You needed to brief me about the escape routes and what to do on the night, right?" she asked carefully.

"Yes, yes, but that can come later," the woman said dismissively, to Miku's surprise and trepidation. "We have other…more pressing problems. It regards Ring. I'm sure that Gumo must have mentioned to you that Ring had…well, a vision, and that this vision has something to do with you," she said delicately. Miku blinked, senses suddenly all on the alert – she was curious now, she wanted to know about anything which might have something to do with her and her future. After all who wouldn't want to know their future, even if there was the possibility that their future wasn't bright and smooth? People were like that. It was natural to want to know more than you were supposed to; _but then there's always a punishment for knowing too much_, her mind whispered.

"Do you really want to know? I'm only telling you because it's important, because it's important enough that you deserve to know even before your mission. Because I know what it feels like to lose a loved one. Gumo, too, understands – it's why he told you. There is nary a person in this place who does not understand what it's like to be left alone by those you held most dear to you," her golden eyes darkened. "Besides, Ring did mention this would take place fairly soon. It might coincide with your mission…so all the more incentive to let you know what she saw. I just fear that you will let this distract you from your task. I wouldn't blame you for that, but one cannot help but worry so…"

Miku was fast getting impatient with the President's hesitation and constant delays. "If you wish to tell me, President, then you should, especially since it appears to be for my own good, no matter what the vision is. Better to get the whole thing over and done with before proceeding with the briefing." She wasn't sure if she would pay more attention before or afterwards – if she was told this vision after the briefing, she knew she would hardly be able to concentrate on the planning itself since she would be too busy wondering what the vision was. But if she was told before…did she really want that? She wanted to know. But what if…what if it involved pain and people getting hurt?

The President's lips twitched, a smirk flitting lightly over her face. "Impatient, like Gumo mentioned earlier before he brought you here. Not entirely unexpected," she sighed and rose, stretching in a feline manner. Miku just forced herself to stay quiet, continuing to face the President. She felt like she was on the brink of discovery now – she didn't want to say anything lest the President changed her mind about speaking. The President walked over to her, those golden eyes boring up into hers – they were almost asking a question, her eyes piercing hers, but Miku couldn't understand what the question the woman was asking was, and finally she looked away, breaking eye contact with Miku.

"Fine, I'll tell you, since you want to know so badly. Just know there's a reason why people say that curiosity kills the cat," the President said blandly, suddenly sounding rather…different from earlier, almost disinterested. Miku bit her lip, heart pounding. Those golden eyes met hers again, no longer piercing but instead, almost flat – lifeless. "Just don't tell me you regret not asking me to keep it from you, because if I was in your shoes, I wouldn't have wanted to know, at least not so very, very soon," she cautioned. Miku remained cautiously, stubbornly, almost defiantly quiet in spite of those words.

The woman sighed and continued. "Ring saw your brother, Mikuo Hatsune. She saw him come back as a zombie…" she paused. "And _you _were the one to kill him."


	9. Chapter 9

"Where are we?" Len muttered in disgust, wiping some of the slime that had fallen onto his shoulder away from his shirt. The goo clung to his fingers and he shook his hand in disgust, wondering if it was a good idea to have followed Haku down this passageway.

"In the culverts," Haku answered tersely. "The Hunters refurbished the original building to make it look more modern but they didn't touch the underground infrastructure. All they did was seal up the culvert, but they never bothered to maintain the seal so there are passageways that lead underground into the culvert now. From there you can enter the main building," the woman was walking ahead of him, her footsteps slow, light and catlike. Even Len, with his enhanced sense of hearing, could not hear a single footstep.

"Well, for a place that was sealed away from sunlight, air and moisture for so many years, you'd think it'd be drier," Len continued muttering, making a mental note to throw away this particular shirt after their whole adventure was over. He didn't want any reminders of how disgustingly filthy his road to Miku had been. "Is this slime toxic? Where is it even coming from…?" he looked up at the ceiling and narrowly avoided being hit in the face by an entire glob of the substance. He made a face at the pile of goo on the floor beside him and hurried a little, hoping he wouldn't have such a narrow miss again. He was already pretty much covered in goo, no need to add any more to his body.

"I don't know," Haku shrugged in front of him. He wondered how the woman could feel her way through the culverts here – even he had a little trouble, and his eyesight was as good as a cat's in the darkness. Haku was nothing but a mortal woman, how could see in such pitch black? It spoke for how many times the woman must have used this path as a way into the headquarters before to be able to guide the way so confidently through the darkness, but why would she have to use such a secret way in when she had all right to walk through the main entrance? He doubted she would answer him even if he asked, though. She didn't talk much to him unless it was necessary. "I never had a reason to ask what this substance was so I didn't bother to find out. Since it doesn't inconvenience or hurt me, I see no reason why I should have to tamper with it, so I just left it well alone."

Len didn't have anything to say in response to that, so he simply said nothing and the two of them continued walking the rest of the way through the culverts in silence. Len resigned himself to letting the mucus destroy his clothes, knowing that by now his jacket was pretty much a lost cause. He knew he had plenty of other clothes anyway.

It just so happened that he had chosen to wear his favourite jacket out today…it was the jacket he had worn the day he told Miku he liked her, the day his life was taken away.

* * *

><p>After numerous turns and backtracks, Haku and Len finally made their way to a small flight of steps which led up to a large steel door. Right in the middle of the door there was a wheel. The metal of the wheel was rusted with age and dripping with slime.<p>

The only reason why they could see the details so closely was because there was a dim, flickering lamp placed right on top of the door, illuminating it in the jet black darkness surrounding them. Len looked questioningly at Haku – the dim light caught her hair, making the silver hair glimmer with an ethereal, almost otherworldly shine. "I maintain that lamp. I would never be able to find the door otherwise – unlike you and the rest of your kind," she turned to look at him steadily, "I don't have the pleasure of night vision."

"I wouldn't say it's a pleasure. It's a convenience," he murmured, more to himself than to the woman, but she heard him anyway, one of her eyebrows arching slightly in curiosity but choosing not to ask him what he meant anyway. Sometimes, seeing things in the dark wasn't something that…he preferred. He didn't interfere with human matters since he was not a human, but he was not completely heartless, and it didn't mean that he did not react at all when he saw a mugging or rape or any other crime hidden deep in the darkness of alleyways and unlit streets – but he was not a human. And, since he was not human, he did not go forward to help. It was none of his business. He had always been told by his parents not to interfere, so he didn't. There was only one time he interfered…

He had always regretted interfering in that rape because the woman was distraught after he killed the man who was forcing himself on her, screaming that he was a monster and a bloodsucking vampire – so what other choice did he have? He killed her too. There was no point in going forward to help humans; that was what he had realised. They only liked what they knew, what they were used to. They rebelled against what they did not understand, and he was something they did not understand since he was not one of them. Humans wouldn't be grateful to him for helping because they did not know what he was and would thus fear him. So there was no point in helping them at all.

Instead of commenting on his words, Haku went up the stairs towards the wheel in the centre of the door, her pale hands practically glowing in the darkness as her skin caught the light of the flickering lamp – she turned the wheel slowly, steadily, the old, rusted metal groaning under the pressure of movement, and the door started to open, tiny bit by bit. He moved forward to help her, tugging at the door and making it open faster. It hurried the job a fair bit since he was stronger than he was, as a vampire. Finally, the gap between the door and the wall was large enough for them to slip through.

He exited the culverts after her, after she had come out and looked around and said that it was all clear for him to leave. He watched as the steel door shut again with a hollow 'clang' and hoped that he would never have to go through that underground system again. He looked down at himself now that he was in proper lighting and acknowledged that his clothes were pretty much entirely ruined – he would never be able to wash the goo out of them. It saddened him – this jacket held immense sentimental value for him. It was the jacket he had been wearing on his very, very last day as a human being.

It was the jacket he had been given on his twelfth birthday by Miku, and it was the jacket he was wearing when he was turned back into a vampire. He had never thought, the whole time he was growing up as a child, that he would be anything other than a normal person, a normal human. But then that very night everything changed, and he realised he was the long-lost vampire prince, the _nosferatu _prince of their First House. That night his dark brown hair turned sleek blond and his familiar grey eyes, the eyes he saw every day when he looked in the mirror, when he passed by a glass surface, those eyes he knew so well faded and turned into a sharp, icy cold blue. It took him a whole year to get used to himself. It took him a year to look in the mirror and not flinch away from the unknown person staring back at him, his reflection. _Who is that…?_

"Right now, we are in the lowermost floors of the Headquarters," Haku's voice jolted him out of his reminiscing. "I do not know where Hatsune is right now, but she most likely is still in the building since the Council tends to be on the more…long-winded side when it comes to explaining their plans," Haku's lips twisted, forming an expression he did not quite recognise. "However, she would definitely be in the lower floors, since any floor above ground is dedicated to commercial activity and has nothing to do with Hunter-related business. I'd advise you not to clean up – the slime is masking your vampire scent to some extent…you could ask around for her, someone must have seen her. Provided they even know who she is, that is," she added, a small reminder of how big the whole headquarters was, and how many different departments there were.

"I am to go alone, then?" he asked, not sure if he liked the idea of that or not. Haku glanced at him, then gave him a brief smile – he was not sure what were the emotions he saw in that smile, wasn't sure if it was a good smile or not. Haku Yowane was still such a puzzle to him; he could not understand her or what she wanted at all, but on the bright side, he was also fairly sure that she could not understand him. That was only to be expected, though. After all, she was a human and he was a vampire, how could they ever expect to understand each other when they were completely different from each other?

"I think you would be able to function better without me hindering you. You are a vampire of the First Class, I'm sure you know what you're doing," he was unsure if there was sarcasm in her words or if she really meant what she said. "Anyway, I have to go – someone has sent me a message about one of the other Council members and my presence is needed to…handle some complications. I cannot accompany you even if I wanted to. I wish you good luck with your mission, Len Kagamine – if you are really persistent enough to find Miku Hatsune, then I applaud you. My promise now is done."

She walked over to the other end of the room, where there was a door – Len had looked around earlier and assumed that they were in some kind of olden boiler room – and, upon opening the door, she silently pointed him down the corridor. He could see, on the other end of the passageway, that there was a lift there. He turned back to give her his thanks, but upon returning his attention to the woman he realised she was already long gone and he had no idea where she went. He frowned, but chose not to question her sudden disappearance – Haku really behaved much like the woman who had taken her in, and he wasn't sure if he liked that in a human or not. In a faery, this kind of sudden disappearing and cryptic answers was only to be expected, but not from…a human.

He didn't even particularly like the idea of a human having the same characteristics as one of the supernaturals. Everything about that was wrong. Humans and supernaturals were supposed to be kept completely separate; letting one of them into their world was too much a risk, too much a danger. Any day, she could accidentally let something slip to the Hunters, and then all of them would be in greater danger than they ever could have anticipated. He hoped that Luka knew better than to speak of Hecate's Moon in front of her adopted daughter – he knew that, even if bound to silence, Hecate's Moon was a large enough phenomenon that Haku would simply be bound to notify the Council about it, no matter the consequences. Hecate's Moon meant danger and destruction, at least in the eyes of the human world, and the Council would try all means to put a stop to it.

_The only issue with that is that Hecate's Moon is simply unstoppable…one cannot halt the rotation of the Earth; one cannot stop water from flowing downwards along gravity's action. In the same way, it is impossible to stop Hecate's Moon from coming to pass – it is a natural event, and not even the supernaturals have any control over it. _If they had, he was sure someone would have long tried to stop it. There were too many mixed results that came with Hecate's Moon, too many possibilities of which not all were good, that unnerved the supernaturals and caused many of them to dread this occurrence, with good reason. But since he knew it could not be stopped, and he also knew that Haku was already part of both their worlds and that was unchangeable, he chose to put all these thoughts out of his head now, and turned his attention to something he still _could _affect.

With a sigh, he carefully approached the lift – it was lying idle now, and he pressed the button, hiding himself just in case the lift doors opened and there was someone inside. When the lift reached his floor, he saw there was no one inside the lift and he let out a sigh of relief, slipping inside the elevator and randomly pressing one of the buttons for the underground section. He had no idea how he was going to find Miku, but he trusted their bond – she was, after all, part of his own now, and some of his blood ran through his veins. He believed that he would know where she was once she was close, and thus didn't worry greatly about finding out her whereabouts. His only concern now was how to not be spotted wandering around in the very heart of the enemy, but he was sure that was something he could settle if it really came down to a fight and he simply had to act.

After all, no one had ever stood up against a First House royal and lived to tell the tale.

* * *

><p>"Wait," Miku's voice was breathless as she stared back at the President, who was watching her carefully, awaiting her reaction to the news. "Mikuo is coming back as a zombie? And…and I'm the one to kill him?" she said weakly. <em>Again,<em> her mind whispered, and that one word almost broke her heart – to have killed her own flesh-and-blood brother once was bad enough – to see him brought back and then to kill him again…

Would she really do that, could she do it? But she knew, in her heart, that this was no longer about whether or not she could do it. If her brother really were to come back as a zombie, then she would have to kill him even if she wished she could let him continue to exist. She paid little attention to the teachings of the other Hunters since they were not of her department, but even _she _knew that zombies were the worst of the lot, even worse than the vampires. Zombies were mindless in the sense that they obeyed only the person who raised them from the dead, who was usually some twisted necromancer. However, they were not passive creatures – once raised, they were untameable for a few minutes, the confusion of being brought back from the dead turning them savage – they were starving and would turn on the nearest available fresh meat, which was usually the one who brought them back to life. If their creator survived the zombie's initial rampage, then the zombie would obey them after they were satiated, but usually inexperienced necromancers didn't bring in other sources of food when they raised someone and so they died, and the zombie would be left to obey no one but himself.

And when that happened, then…things didn't go well. Zombies were the most foul out of all the supernaturals; they were the true undead, and they had a particular liking for human brains – no one really knew why, and no one dared to ask them, so that question went unanswered. Others speculated that it was because technically, the dead didn't have the ability to think, so they fed on brains so they could maintain their own mental capacity. Zombies also fed on human flesh to maintain their appearance, because once they stopped eating fresh meat, they started to degenerate back into cadavers. Free zombies without a master were surprisingly common and as such, the zombies actually had their own society now, where they diplomatically elected their own king and got rid of him if they felt he was not doing a proper job of leading their kind to greater heights.

Zombies were the one supernatural species where Hunters were ordered to kill on sight, because unlike the vampires and the werewolves, who did have substitutes for what they needed from humans – vampires had synthetic blood, werewolves could opt to feed on animal flesh – zombies did not. Zombies _had _to eat humans, they had no other alternative, and that was why Hunters did their best to get rid of them because they had no other choice. It was easier said than done though, killing a zombie – the zombie Hunter department was the one with the highest death rate. Zombies were technically not supposed to exist anyway, so Miku had never seen anything wrong with getting rid of the undead – but now, at the idea that her older brother might become one of them…

"But wouldn't that make you happy? Seeing your brother again, I mean," the President asked, tilting her head, looking curious. "I know you miss him. Who wouldn't miss their own older brother? Especially since, I hear, you were the one who killed him when he was converted into a vampire…were you not?" at the reminder, tears sprang to her eyes. Of course she normally wouldn't be so easily affected by someone reminding her that she was the one who killed her brother, but the President's earlier words had stunned her, and for a moment it made her let down her walls – she didn't know how to react or respond to the possibility of seeing someone so dear, and having to kill him yet _again._

"Of course I would be happy!" she cried out. "But only if it was to see him alive again, not in some…some twisted state where he's neither dead nor alive. Mikuo would never have wanted that – he'd rather _die _than be a predator, he gave his life to protect others and I know it would kill him, the real him, to know that he was taking the lives of those he was supposed to protect. If he really were to come back as a zombie," she sniffed, unable to prevent some of the tears from flowing, "then he would want someone to kill him too. He wouldn't want to exist on the lives of other people. He isn't selfish, and he would never want that, not even just to keep the semblance of living. I wouldn't want him to do something he doesn't want to do either. If you asked me to, I _will _kill him again, even if it pains me to do so. I want him to be happy, and if he's happier dead, then so be it!"

"But what if…just what if," the President's voice was quiet, but even in its quietness there was an intensity about it that made her shut up and listen, "what if he does want to live? What if in death, he's realised that it's better to live even if he would have to take away the lives of hundreds of people – what if he still wants to live, but he swears he will try to keep the murders to a minimum? That he would be himself again, the Mikuo Hatsune you knew and loved, who protected you – would you still want to kill him?"

She froze at the idea of that, at the idea of Mikuo not wanting to die again. What if that was true – what if this time, if he came back to life as a zombie, he didn't want to return to that state of death? What if after he was truly killed as a vampire, he hated his state of existence and wanted to live again, even if as a zombie all he could have was a farce of life? But she caught what she was thinking, and instantly knew that no matter what, Mikuo would never have wanted just a farce – he was a person who always went to the extreme, with Mikuo it was always all or nothing. And she knew him well enough to know that he would think that way of living as well. "No. No, he would not want that," she answered, her voice as quiet as the President's. "He would never want to be a killer, not even to extend his own life. Mikuo wouldn't change his principles for his own sake."

"So you would kill him even if he comes to you and begs you to let him live?" she hated the way the President was questioning her; it made her feel like she was absolutely heartless, so readily condoning her brother to die again. The more she thought about it the more despicable she felt – this was the man who had protected her from harm ever since she was a child, who would never have allowed anything to hurt her. He would have thrown away his own life to save hers because of how much he loved her – Miku was everything to her brother. Their whole family was everything to him, he would have done anything to keep all of them safe…the same way her father would. And here she was, so callously saying that she would kill Mikuo if he returned as a zombie. But she knew it was for the greater good that she didn't let him live, and for his own good.

"Yes," she answered, forcing her voice to be steady, reaching up to furiously rub the tears away from her face – she was a Hunter, she was strong and she did not cry. "Yes, I would kill him because it is my duty to keep humans in the dark and safe from the world of the supernatural. If he did anything to threaten the humans, and in this case his very existence alone would be a threat, then I will get rid of him personally. I will see to it myself that the threat he poses is eliminated, and I do so myself because he is my very own flesh-and-blood brother. I do not trust anyone else to do it on my behalf."

The President continued watching her for a moment, and she forced her back to straighten and forced herself to look dead ahead, not showing any signs of weakness whatsoever. She wondered if this was a test to see how strong she was, if she was able to hold her own against such mental trauma and continue to function; if this was a test to show her determination and focus on objectives, before they allowed her to attend the party and find out more information about the supernaturals. She struggled to wipe away all remnant of emotion on her face, leaving her expression blank as fresh paper, knowing that any sign of emotion would be taken as weakness. Finally, the woman sighed, relaxing back into her chair. "There's more to the vision than what I just said."

Her heart palpitated in her chest as she wondered what more there could be to this straightforward mess she was probably going to entangle herself in. If Mikuo came back as a zombie, for there was no other way he could return, then she would have to kill him, simple as that. It sounded simple, though she knew her emotions would make the whole thing messy, but ultimately it was simple because she would have no alternative other than to destroy the undead. It was her duty. Yet, the President was now looking at her as though there was something more to it, something more than Mikuo just coming back as one of the undead – which simply could not be possible, because there was no other way the dead could come back to a farce of life other than as a zombie, was there?

"He might not return as a zombie. That's where the vision gets a little…hazy, Ring does not quite understand either. She didn't tell Gumo much about that part. I would think it best that you go and see her yourself after she has recovered. She should wake up soon, Ring has always recovered relatively quickly from her episodes…" the President said slowly, carefully, her golden eyes never once leaving hers. Miku almost stumbled back in shock because what the President was saying was _not possible_, had to be a lie or some fabricated story designed to manipulate her into – into doing what? She did not know. Yet, as she stared into those narrowed golden eyes, she could see no lie in her words.

"Why are you telling me all this now?" she asked, almost snapped, but caught herself just in time. "I thought you wanted to get me ready for the party. But then we're here, discussing a vision we know nothing about, and because of that I can't be sure about anything or what I'm supposed to do about the vision…and my brother might come back to life and I would have to kill him again if that were to happen. I'm just…I don't know and I don't understand what is the point of all this, President Kagene," she said stiffly.

The President said nothing for a while, and the silence between them grew so tense that one could have cut it with a knife. Finally, the petite dark woman let out a sigh. "I'm telling you all this because I, too, understand loss. And I don't want you to feel the same kind of loss that I did. If you have a chance to retrieve what was lost to you, then I would urge you to take that chance, even if you think that it is wrong if you were to do so," her eyes looked deep into hers, penetrating down to her very soul, and Miku froze – was the President actually…actually asking her to let her brother live even if he came back as one of the undead? "There is nothing worse than losing someone you hold dear to you, as I'm sure your brother was to you. If you can get him back, then don't lose him again."

Before she could question the President on what she was saying, she turned away from Miku, rising from her chair and walking over to one of her bookcases. From the shelves, she retrieved a book and bade her come over to her side, flipping the book open to a map of a vaguely familiar building – the town hall, she realised dimly, half her mind focusing on what the President was currently telling her and the other half distracted but what she was just told. How could their President actually allow a zombie to live? She wondered if the President was…well, all right, but she saw the look in her golden eyes and knew that she was perfectly lucid and perfectly serious. Was all this a test?

"His party will be held here, after midnight. They have soundproofed the walls and the lighting will be dim there, since they need little light to see – that way it won't interrupt the humans, though of course the town hall is surprisingly removed from the general populace, but you must be careful since you can't see in the dark as well as them. And, no matter what they say about their nobility, you cannot take the chance that some of them will be hungry that night. A great many of them have come over since a few weeks ago and they probably have not fed in preparation for his birthday. If they were to see you, you might be targeted, especially since you are a Hunter. So you must protect yourself well by knowing all the escape routes. I want you to study this map now – I will test you on the various routes to escape for each situation subsequently," the President was now telling her, and Miku nodded, her eyes drifting over the building plans.

She would think about the vision and what the President told her to do later. She still couldn't believe it, couldn't believe that her brother might become a zombie and that the _President _herself told her to let him live. She wondered if this was all just a dream.

* * *

><p>Len had, much to his own surprise, managed not to get caught the whole time he was wandering around in the basement. Now he was walking along B4, and he was starting to get awfully bored with this whole thing. He thought he would have run into someone by now, would have to show off his skills a little or something – but no, the whole place was dead. It was almost worse than back home, where all he had were Arctic foxes.<p>

The slime was starting to dry, and when it dried it left behind some powdery substance on his skin that faintly disgusted him. He rubbed his fingers along the powder – it was white after it dried, though the slime itself had been a transparent sort of yellow – and it caught on his skin. He raised his fingertips to his nose, sniffing carefully at the powder – it did have a smell though it did not smell…like the slime. In fact, the more he sniffed at it, the more he thought he had smelled this scent before, but he simply could not recall where he last smelled it – he knew this, had smelled it plenty of times before, but why?

And if it was a familiar smell, then why was it in the culverts of a place he had never been to before? His eyes narrowed and he shook his head slightly, trying to recall why the scent of this dried up goo was so familiar to him. Something was whispering on the edge of his thoughts, a word that hovered near him, within reach yet so far…he tried to grasp out for that memory but try as he might it kept slithering out of reach. His growled softly in frustration and decided that he would focus on finding Miku first – this slime business could wait until later, finding Miku was of greater priority to him now.

He continued around the bend, grumbling softly under his breath, and looked up into startled violet eyes. He froze, and the two of them just stared at each other for a while. Len wondered whether he ought to back off and run away or if he should just casually pretend that he was from this organisation and continue walking past the man. Before he had to come to a decision, however, the blond haired man continued walking up towards him, his nose wrinkled and his eyes narrowed. "Hey, you – what the hell have you been up to?" he asked suspiciously. "You smell like something that just crawled out of a drain and _died_…shouldn't you at least wash up before coming to see the Council?"

_The Council…I must be at the floor where all the Council members normally hold their meetings or whatever they like to do. _Len instantly knew that he had to be careful – if this man was here, he was either a Hunter or one of the Council themselves. "Sorry, got attacked by some homeless Fourth House vampires on the way back to headquarters. Got rid of them but they really stank, especially right after they blew up in my face. I'll go and clean up right away…how silly of me, I meant to go to," he panicked and casually threw out a name, "B2 and get my files…I'll be making my way right back. See you!"

"What do you mean B2? There's nothing on B2. B2 is where they keep all the Fourth House vampires and the other vermin that, for some reason, the Hunters decided to bring in alive. There aren't any offices there," the man seemed to be growing even more suspicious. "Say, I don't think I've seen you around before, kid. Which department did you say you're from again?" the man tilted his head, waiting for his answer.

Len didn't know what to say. All he knew was that there were three departments – the vampires, zombie and lycanthropes. He had no idea which department he ought to say he was from, but finally he decided to settle on vampire – he knew that was the biggest department and since he was a vampire himself, he ought to be able to answer any questions this man might throw at him about killing his own kind. "Vampire Hunter," he answered as coolly as possible, secretly hoping that this was the right answer and that things were not about to go haywire. The man arched an eyebrow at his answer.

"Really…? You're from the Vampire department? I've never seen you around," the man's eyes narrowed further. "Kid, if you're really from that department, then do you have any idea where the Head of that department happens to be? He's a damned bum; never there when someone needs him to be around – I need to report to him about some suspicious activity I spotted in the building…saw someone wandering around the floors earlier, looks like there was an intruder. As usual, I can't find the Head anywhere."

"Uh, the head of the Vampire department…? Sorry, have no idea where he might be," Len said quickly, hoping the man would let go of him soon. He really wanted to continue on his way; he didn't have the time to waste on this man with his pointless questions. At his response, the man let go of him, and Len instantly let out a quiet sigh of relief – but that relief was immediately changed when the man stepped back and whipped out a gun, holding it right up against his forehead. Len's eyes widened in surprise – oh, he wasn't scared because just blowing his brains out wouldn't kill him, but…what was going on?

"You're not from my department. _I'm _the head of the Vampire department, Nero Akita," the blond man growled. _He's the head? But he can't be more than a few years older than I am! _"Now who the hell are you, intruder, and what do you want from the Hunters?"


End file.
